Taiwan Will Not Be Able To Compete in The U16 Asian Men's Basketball Tournament

The U16 Asian Men's Basketball Championship hosted by FIBA recently announced the group list, but there is no Taiwan team. Li Yunxiang, secretary-general of the Chinese Basketball Association, revealed that the East Asian Basketball Association unilaterally decided that only the top three teams in East Asia could compete, so there was no Taiwan.

The president of the East Asian Basketball Association is Chinese basketball star Yao Ming, and the secretary general of the Macao Basketball Association is Hu Shufen. It is understood that the decision was directly ruled by the two of them, and there was no meeting to inform the Member States, in addition to Taiwan, including Mongolia, Hong Kong and Macau.

The U16 Asian Youth Men's Basketball Tournament will be played in Qatar from September 17, but the Taiwan men's basketball team, which has already organized training, has not received relevant information about the tournament until mid-August, so the Basketball Association of the Republic of China wrote to the International Basketball Association (FIBA) and the East Asian Basketball Association (EABA).

Unexpectedly, the reply received only said, "The U16 Asian youth men's basketball tournament will be directly qualified by the regional ranking, and only the top 3 in East Asia, China, South Korea and Japan have the right to participate." Taiwan, ranked fourth in East Asia and seventh in Asia, did not participate.

Li Yunxiang had directly protested to Hu Shufen at the FIBA annual meeting at the end of August, but Hu Shufen only responded that "the decision on the qualification of the East Asia U16 men's basketball tournament will be decided according to the FIBA ranking, as this is the most suitable arrangement."

The U16 Asian Championship men's basketball team is headed by Liao Ying鋕, and the coaching team is composed of Xu Zexin, Lin Yuzheng and Zhou Yan-hong. The 15 players are Lin Ziping, Cha Jie, Zhang Weining, Zhou Youcheng, Xie Mingeng, Liu Yonghao, Huang Hansheng, Zhong Junyu, Xing Yusheng, Zhang Yulon, Tian Ya Xiu, Xie Zongen, Zhang Junhuai, Chen Xiangrong and Li Yucheng.