Teams in Malta uncomfortably refuse to score in the last six minutes of the game
From the Eurohoops team / [email protected]
Perhaps some of the weirdest minutes of basketball I’ve seen recently took place in a Maltese Championship game last week.
Depiro beat Hibernians 69 – 68 on the last day of the regular season in a game where no points were scored in the last 6:30 minutes. And it was not because both teams failed in their genuine efforts to make a basket but because, apparently, they tried very hard to do the opposite.
Last-minute footage shows players from both teams deliberately committing turnovers, including firing the clock, sending bad passes (visibly deliberately) and only waiting for time to expire. one: Do everything possible to avoid any change in the score.
When one of the young players on the ground actually made a legitimate attempt to send the ball to the basket in the final seconds, one of his opponents rushed and blocked the shot.
Maltese Basketball Serie A. 6 minutes at the end of Depiro-Hibernians, the last day of the regular season. The score doesn’t change anymore, neither of them wants to win to get the desired placement in the playoff grid.
6 minutes of simple sports. pic.twitter.com/vrI2OtsILk– The Typical Day (@parallelecinico) March 27, 2022
The Malta Basketball Association declared the game null and void and expelled both teams from the league with immediate effect for “failing to maintain the standard and integrity expected of the Association council” and “drew the the Maltese game and Basketball in serious disrepute. “
In addition, Depiro coach James Bamfield and Hibernians coach Mario Tabone have been suspended until the end of the 2022-23 season for “failing to protect the integrity of the sport”. Players from both teams who were involved in suspicious actions during the last six minutes were given a three-game ban. Three underage Depiro players have had their own sanction suspended for the next three years.