Dubai: Ramon Pizarras, the promoter who brought the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Governors' Cup matches to Dubai over the weekend admitted future matches in the UAE were in jeopardy after members of the Talk N Text team were stranded at the airport on Sunday night due to unpaid return flights and hotel bills.
PBA Commissioner Chito Salud had earlier announced plans to stage two competitive games annually over the next five years in the UAE, but such initiatives could now be put on hold, at least with this promoter, after teams were forced to settle bills out of their own pockets.
Pizarras, chairman of the Sharjah-based Filipino Basketball Centre, said: "I didn't expect the hotel bill to be more than Dh23,000, I only had Dh15,000. I put down Dh10,000 and was still Dh13,000 short. I told them I would give them my labour card and pay the [balance] tomorrow but the hotel was insistent. My daughter was still collecting cash from other outlets so I spoke to the coaches and they chipped in almost Dh4,000 each. I need to pay them back."
Talk N Text players had to be booked on separate flights for Manila.
Negligence
Pizarras said: "Due to negligence of my staff a box of tickets went missing. We discovered that tickets had been stolen and sold or handed out — a lot of people got in free. I knew then that this wasn't very good for me."
Talk N Text coach Chot Reyes had tweeted from the airport: "Nightmare in Dubai! Hotel refuses to release all 3 teams' passports as organizer still has $8,000 (Dh29,381) debt. We had to advance d funds!"
"UNBELIEVABLE how badly d PBA handled this trip, esp since I warned them already about this promoter, coz this is NOT d 1st time this happnd."
Pizarras recently brought the Ateneo Blue Eagles and the De La Salle Green Archers for a goodwill game in Dubai. Chot Reyes' son Josh tweeted: "Apparently they [FBC] had debt from the admu vs dlsu (game) in Dubai transferred to us." Pizarras denied this upon questioning from Gulf News.
