Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter

DEBTS IN excess of $15 million, a watered-down national league and disenfranchised conferences are just some of the reasons that Pete Matthews claims he will challenge incumbent Jamaica Basketball Association (JABA) president Marland Nattie for that post at the annual general conference on Saturday.

"We are in a jam with basketball right now. We are not going anywhere and the administration needs to be changed," a disgruntled Matthews, former president of the Referees Association and president of National Basketball League team Runnin' Rebels, said.

"This administration has a shroud of secrecy about them. They are running a national organisation and information is supposed to be disseminated to all of the players involved, but they don't want to tell anybody anything," he said.

He also referred to the fact that local bodies had just received a document showing the financial status of the organisation which, Matthews says, was requested from the 2004 annual general meeting.

In addition to the debt owed by the association, Matthews has also accused the current association of doing a poor job of developing basketball as an islandwide sport.

"Basketball here is structured into five conferences. Each of them has a president and an executive and if you speak to half of them right now, they are so disgruntled that they have stopped having dialogue with the association and are doing their own thing," Matthews said. "We need to change all of that."

Local players excluded

While commending the association for its bid to win CARICOM and international tournaments, he does not believe that it has done anything to improve the standard of local basketball as the local players have been all but excluded from these teams.

"They have been in office from 1997 and while the complaint is that the local players are not good enough, how long will we say that for?" Matthews asked.

"The NBL is our biggest league and we should be able to garner players locally to play in a national league ... that means that there is no development or improvement," he said.

Matthews also said none of the NBL teams had been paid since the end of the competition.

"JABA is broke. It will be a sticky situation to get out of but it has to start somewhere," he said

While believing that challenges are a part of the growing pains of any organisation, current president Nattie believes that his team has done a good job in paving the way for further development.

Nattie also made no concessions for the organisation's financial state.

"In regard to debt - we are cognisant of that, but we are not really regretful, it has been necessary to set a solid foundation," he said. "In the long term we have plans that will see the teams and the conferences making their own money. Based on the successful hosting of the Caribbean championships we have already received offers for teams to hold events here and they have made good offers," he said.