Board to act on Romero’s PBA bid tomorrow

The Philippine Basketball Association board of governors will finally decide tomorrow on the application for membership by sportsman Mikee Romero through its Sultan 900 Capital which recently bought the franchise of Coca-Cola.

The board meeting was set at 12 noon after the deed of sale of the Coca-Cola franchise, which competed as Powerade in the last season, finally reached  the Office of the PBA Commissioner yesterday.

Commissioner Chito Salud will spend the better part of today doing his due diligence on the sale before making a recommendation during the meeting where Romero needs seven votes from the nine members to join Asia’s first pro cage league.

New chair Robert Non of Barangay Ginebra, during the annual meeting of the board in Macau over the weekend, had said that their initial findings on Romero, based on his participation in the ABL and in the defunct PBL, was that they “think he is capable of maintaining a PBA team.”

Salud, on the other hand, said that, after enjoying a banner season, they won’t settle for a nine-team roster for the league’s 38th season, which opens Sept. 30 with the Philippine Cup.

Despite reports that Sultan 900 had already bought the Coca-Cola franchise, the board couldn’t act on the application of Romero since the arrival of the deed of sale did not happen before the board meeting in Macau.

The PBA grossed more than P114 million at the gates last season and will be implementing basically the same formula for the next three conferences.

Imports will return in two of the three conferences, with the unlimited height for reinforcements to be used in the Commissioner’s Cup and the Governors’ Cup to be bannered by import of not more than 6-foot-5 in height.

Also to be discussed during the board meeting are the concessions that Romero want to boost his team’s strength.

One of them is being granted the top overall pick or, being able to directly hire five amateur standouts.

But Non and Salud, in Macau, had practically turned that down since Romero will be inheriting a potent team that has last season’s scoring champion Gary David, former No. 1 pick JV Casio and a slew of young talents led by the hardworking Sean Anthony.