NLEX’s KJ McDaniels dunks the ball against Terrafirma during their game in the 2021 PBA Governors’ Cup at Araneta Coliseum. PBA IMAGES
MANILA, Philippines—The fate of the PBA Governors’ Cup will be determined during a crucial Board meeting set next week.
The league was forced to suspend the season-ending conference indefinitely due to the rise of COVID-19 cases in the country.
“We’re going to call for a Board meeting next week to discuss where the PBA is heading,” PBA commissioner Willie Marcial said in Filipino on Tuesday during the PSA Forum.
“We’ll know the fate of the PBA and which direction we’re going when we meet next week. We’ll know if we’ll push through with our conference or not and on what we’re going to do with the imports and players. Perhaps, we’ll be able to shed a bit of light by next week.”
The shutdown happened just as the PBA welcomed back its fans live at the venue after holding its games crowdless.
Though the outlook appears bleak at this point with the National Capital Region (NCR) still under Alert Level 3 due to the highly-transmissible COVID-19 variant Omicron, the PBA got a shot in the arm from the Games and Amusements Board (GAB).
GAB chair Baham Mitra recently endorsed the resumption of the PBA to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) behind Marcial’s proposal of a “Type C bubble” or home-venue-home setup.
“GAB was already endorsed a letter to the IATF to allow us to play. So I thank him (Mitra) because that’s a big help for us,” said Marcial, who also did not close the door on the possibility of hodling another bubble outside Metro Manila.
The last two PBA conferences were held in a bubble in Pampanga.