The National Football Club had an afternoon of back and forth this Tuesday in the preview of the match against Aguada for the semifinals of the Uruguayan Basketball League, a meeting that was not finally played, by decision of the government.
Given the 15 cases of covid-19 in the tricolor campus, the leaders of the Basketball Commission, an appendix of the club that is managed independently, decided in the first instance not to appear at the meeting that was to be played at the Antel Arena from 19:15, but a couple of hours later that resolution was reversed and the Albos decided that they were going to play with a team made up of youth players plus the North American Dominique Morrison, and that it would be directed by a coach from the training divisions.
It was a busy afternoon inside the club, one day before the crucial soccer game that they will play this Wednesday against Independiente del Valle for the Copa Libertadores in the Gran Parque Central.
Is it played or not played?
This Tuesday the big question in the basketball environment was whether Nacional was going to appear in the game against Aguada after 15 cases of coronavirus were confirmed in his team, coaching staff and leaders in recent days.
The club’s commission, chaired by Ariel Martínez, decided that this would not be the case and sent a statement via email to the Uruguayan Basketball Federation (FUBB), with a copy to Aguada, in which it announced that it was not going to appear at the meeting.
This was announced by the Federation at 2:39 p.m. on its social networks.
That surprising determination meant that the rojiverdes, by attending the game, were going to be awarded as winners and that the semifinal series was going to equal 1-1.
But everything changed in a while. More than two hours later, at 5:16 p.m., the same Federation through the League’s Twitter account reported that Nacional changed its position and presented “the best squad available to face the match scheduled for today.”
What happened in Nacional?
Given the magnitude of the situation, the National presidency, with José Decurnex in command, took the reins of the matter, leaving the commission in the background.
The tricolor leadership understood that the decision not to appear, adopted by the basketball subsection, was a hasty decision and immediately reversed it.
When Nacional sent the first communication to the Basketball Federation, the main board of Nacional was meeting to see how they handled the situation.
@CNdeFbasketball
After the release of the first email, which the Federation made public, Vice President Alejandro Balbi contacted the FUBB to inform that this, although it started from an official communication channel, was not the club’s decision and that the team was going to present itself to play against Aguada.
That first mess left Nacional exposed, because until then the FUBB valued the communication that it had officially received via email through the club’s official account.
At that time, the directors of Nacional were trying to maintain communication with the basketball authorities, chaired by Ricardo Vairo, and the sports authorities, headed by Sebastián Bauzá, because the board of directors of the club that has Decurnex as president understood that they were the ones who should resolve the issue of the meeting dispute.
For the main board of Nacional, the game should not be played because their team was not in conditions, but they were not going to stop showing up. For that reason, they had arranged that they were going to appear for a matter of “sportsmanship”, as could be seen in the T-shirts that the young players wore at the Antel Arena.
In the middle of the afternoon, Decurnex had a communication with the National Secretary of Sports, Bauzá, who told him that that same Tuesday they were going to take measures, without telling him what they were going to be.
The official communication of the government, through the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, occurred at the moment when Balbi was heading towards the Antel Arena. What motivated the vice president to go to the closed stadium? It was then that the tricolor received the information that there was a positive case in a player from Aguada.
The vice president attended to remove the players from the team who had already taken the field and were performing pre-competitive exercises.
Balbi informed the youths that they were not going to play the game because there was a case in Aguada and they did not want to expose them.
Almost in parallel, basketball activity was suspended by determination of the government authorities. The communication reached the directors of the FUBB who were in the stadium.
Later, the government announced that starting this Wednesday and for 18 days, all indoor sports, including basketball, were suspended.
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