INQUIRER Sports

ALKHOBAR?Basketball aficionados can look forward to enjoying quality basketball entertainment during the Ramadan Eid holidays when Filipinos in Saudi Arabia gather for the All Filipino Regional Goodwill Games Showdown.

Commissioner Abdul Aziz ?Jawo? Dizon of the organizing United Filipino Sports Association-Dammam Basketball League (UFSA-DBL) said the event would take place October 2 and 3 at the Al Nahda Sports Club here.

?Basketball fans are getting excited this early for the big event in the Eastern Province. We have distributed fliers in areas with large concentration of Filipinos,? said Dizon.

?We are ready to fire and hopefully we?ll be able to give basketball-loving Filipinos a good show on D-day,? he added.

Four select teams from Jeddah, Jubail, Riyadh and Alkhobar have confirmed participation in the tournament dubbed All Filipino Regional Goodwill Games Showdown.

The four squads are to vie for trophies and cash prizes as well as battle for bragging rights as the elite of elites in Filipino hoopdom.

To represent Jeddah is the Western Province Basketball League (WPBL) All Stars under the stewardship of veteran coach Boy ?Digital? Corsega. The head of the Jeddah delegation is WPBL Chairman Camansa ?Rams? Gunao.

The invitation from UFSA-DBL was coursed through Mohammad Bayoumi, WPBL consultant-adviser and recipient of Presidential Banaag Award.

The Jubail team will be bannered by the Calo brothers Arnold and Kim and the veteran Winnie Datuputi. Sponsored by Saudi Aramco Khurais Project, Jubail will have Bert Radan as the head coach with Amin Ghazawi, Faisal Al-Ghamdi, and Eric Tabor as team managers.

Riyadh is competing under the umbrella of MKB (Manggagawang Kapit-Bisig) with the support of FILBAR (Filipino Basketball Association of Riyadh). Bernie David, who has had stints at Welcoat PBL as player, at UST as head coach and at the Philippine team as assistant coach, will call the shots from the Riyadh bench.

The Alkhobar team of Sheikh Fahad A. Alireza will be led by Eastern Province basketball stars Jessie Cabanayan, formerly of PBA Purefoods, Rollie Bisda, Allan de Castro and Omar Asmad. Fouad Kabalaoui is the team manager with Homer Gandia and Gary Hije as assistant coaches.

Dizon said the two-day basketball bash is sponsored by Fahd Alireza Engineering Consutants through Sheikh Fahd and UMA (United Motors Agencies).

With Dizon in the UFSA-DBL Organizing Committee are Ely Panahon, chairman; Willy Fajardo, league consultant; Tito Pineda, marketing director; Victor delos Santos, finance director; Viktor Metran, technical director and Manny Principe, technical consultant.