INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines—National basketball coach Yeng Guiao on Friday described the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas' appointment of Rajko Toroman as national basketball team project director as "confusing." SBP executive director Noli Eala straightened out some of the mix-up, including the fact that Toroman may end up coaching the national team.

"Si Noli naman pinapaikot tayo, nililito tayo (Noli is confusing us)," Guiao, a board member and former president of the Basketball Coaches Association of the Philippines said at the Scoop Forum yesterday.

"Toroman is on board as a project director," Eala again clarified in a phone call to the Inquirer. "He will put together a program for the national team, we will study his program and we will decide what to do after that. We are not discounting the possibility of him coaching but all that will come after we see his program."

Toroman and the SBP officially came to terms Tuesday.

"What we were asking was a wide ranging consultation by the BAP-SBP before signing any contract," Guiao said. "But what happened is the contract has been signed before we were consulted."

Eala denied, however, that the BCAP made a request for such a consultation. The former PBA commissioner also revealed he has been in constant communication with BCAP head Chito Narvasa regarding the Toroman issue.

"We've been very transparent when it comes to Toroman," said Eala. "In fact, we've talked to Chito three to four times already and we've sent him a copy of Toroman's [curriculum vitae]."