Luanda - Petro de Luanda have quit the Angolan Basketball Cup, due to the team’s involvement, in May, in the Basketball African League (BAL), a competition the team say is determined to win, ANGOP has learnt.
The withdrawal is due to the calendar, since both competitions take place next month, the Angolan Basketball Federation’s competition director, Tony Sofrimento, announced in a press conference.
The Angola Basketball Cup will be played from May 7 to 29 and the African Clubs League in the second fortnight, a very adverse situation for the Angolan representative that seeks the third continental trophy.
The return of the team to the country should only happen on May 31, but it will have to comply with a period of institutional quarantine, and then its players will integrate the national team for the Olympic Games qualifying tournament in June, Sofrimento has said.
1º de Agosto are the current champions of the Angola Basketball Cup and the continental trophy won in 2019 when the competition was called African Champions League.
In 2020, the African competition was not held due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Organized by FIBA-Africa, with support of the NBA, the Basketball African League (BAL), previously scheduled for March 2020, will be the first edition of the cup with this denomination.
Besides Petro, the competition integrates the GS Petroliers (Algeria), AS Police (Mali), GMN Basket (Madagascar), AS Douanes (Senegal) and AS Sale (Morocco).
