Don’t blame refs - Prieto (Oct. 10, 1982)

PBA Commissioner Leo Prieto defended the league’s pool of referees after being criticized for its handling of the second Toyota-Crispa match in the 1982 PBA Open Conference.

Don’t blame refs — Prieto

‘Discipline starts with teams’

Tempo

Published Sunday Oct. 10, 1982

The eight Philippine Basketball Association teams will have to police their ranks to prevent hardcourt fights and other incidents which are blamed on the referees most of the time.

PBA Commissioner Leo Prieto said it is the duty of club officials, particularly the team managers and coaches, to instill discipline among their players.

“Disciplining errant players to basically the function of club management,” Prieto said. “Spitting at opposing players, punching and dangerous tackles should not be tolerated by the clubs.”

Prieto said that it is convenient for team officials and partisans to always blame the referees whenever untoward incidents happen inside the hardcourt. “What they forget is that if players behave properly, play clean and observe sportsmanship, there will be no fights,” he stressed.

Most of the time, Prieto said disputed calls are judgment calls. “The referees are human, they commit mistakes,” he admitted. “But overall, their performance has greatly improved since we started to rate them and evaluate their work. The fines and suspensions on error-prone referees have also helped in upgrading the quality of officiating.”

Prieto also noted that periodic seminars are undertaken to acquaint the whistle-toters of rule changes and to point out shortcomings and lapses in the application of certain rules.

“We always tell them to be consistent and not let their emotions take over their judgment,” Prieto stated.

At present, there are 12 professional basketball referees licensed by the Games and Amusements Board. The 13th, Jose Obias, resigned recently after he was demoted from Class A to Class B and then Class C because of poor and sometimes questionable performance.

To beef up the 12-man pool, the PBA has recruited five referees from the amateur ranks who are now training rigidly in preparation for regular assignments in the three-conference pro circuit.

PBA referees came under fire last week after that riotous Crispa-Toyota game the other Saturday.

Danny Floro, Crispa owner-manager, asked Prieto, in a formal letter, to review the performance of referees and do a background check in the wake of reports that some of them were known to be consorting with shady characters.

“There are times,” Floro claimed, “when callers warn us before a game that if this or that referee is made to officiate, we would surely lose.”

Floro singled out referee Reynaldo Victorino in his letter to Prieto saying that the arbiter was unfair to Crispa in that game with Toyota which the Super Corollas won in overtime.

The match was marred by a fight involving Toyota’s Francis Arnaiz and Abe King, on one hand, and Crispa’s Bernard Fabiosa and Rudy Distrito, on the other. All four players were meted stiff penalties by Prieto last Thursday.

Prieto, meanwhile, absolved the three referees of blame for the stormy Crispa-Toyota tussle, explaining in a letter-reply to Floro that a review of the tape of the game and the arbiters acted properly.