The Taiwan-hosted William Jones Cup basketball invitational international tournament will be postponed this year due to the lack of teams willing to compete in the event because of related disease prevention protocols, the organizers said Thursday.
The tournament, which has already had a two-year hiatus after being cancelled in 2020 and 2021, was slated to return in the first half of August but will now be postponed because teams from overseas are unwilling to observe point-to-point movement restrictions and mandatory quarantine on entry to Taiwan, the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA) said in a statement.
With too few teams to field an international tournament, the CTBA said it has decided to postpone this year's event, which would have been the 42nd edition, and announce new dates later.
Currently, the new dates are being planned for September, but whether it will go ahead remains uncertain as it will also depend on COVID-19 prevention rules and the willingness of invited teams to participate, the CTBA said.
However, in the event the tournament ends up not being held this year, other events will be organized in its place, such as inviting domestic teams from different leagues in the country to play friendly cross-league games for Taiwanese basketball fans, the CTBA said.
Taiwan currently has two professional basketball leagues, the P. LEAGUE+ and the T1 LEAGUE, which field six teams each; while the semiprofessional Super Basketball League, often known as the SBL, has four teams.
In 2019, the Mighty Sports basketball team from the Philippines swept all of their eight games to be crowned champions in the men's division, while the Japanese club team Mitsubish Electric won all five of their games to win the women's title.
Held in Taiwan since 1977, the tournament was named after British basketball promoter Renato William Jones, the first secretary general of FIBA, basketball's world governing body, a post he held for 44 years from 1932.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel