BASKETBALL Fiji has warned players it will come down hard on violent play. Development officer Lai-siasa wants players participating at the Easter Cham-pionships to play in the spirit of the game. "Basketball Fiji will not tolerate and will take a firm standard on any participant who acts in a violent manner and not in the spirit of the game," said Puamau. "We will be aiming to promote a healthy and well organised tournament for all the participants to enjoy. We have limited the numbers of participating teams to 16 men's and 10 women's teams in our bid to try and create a very competitive environment." There are four pool games and the pools have been designed according to the rankings received from the weekly competition leag-ues organised by the respective associations. "The top clubs from their respective associations ea-ch take a pool and then teams are then divided accordingly," said Puamau. FIBA Oceania officials Steve Smith and Regan Kama are in the country to watch the championships and see developments in Fiji. They are representatives of basketball's international body. "They were very imp-ressed with the amount of work we had been conducting here and decided to come and have a look themselves," said Puamau. Basketball Fiji has org-anised a parade for all te-ams on Friday morning at 8.30am which begins at Cost U Less. This will be the first time that basketball as a sport has organised such an ev-ent. Furthermore on Satu-rday at 2pm a Junior exhibition match will be played between the Raiwaqa All Stars and Veiuto Primary School.

The Fiji Times Newspaper

Wednesday 31st March, 2010