Cesafi says court should not ‘interfere’ with league decisions about athletes

A local sports association said the court should not “interfere” with its decision to disqualify a high school athlete, whose rejection parents claim is a form of child abuse.

The Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. (Cesafi) stood its ground and asked the Cebu City Regional Trial Court yesterday to recall its temporary restraining order (TRO) which mandated the league to allow 15-year-old Scott Aying to play.

The pleading was filed a day after the Cesafi board of trustees postponed all high school games in its ongoing tournament because of the lawsuit.

Cesafi lawyers Baldomero Estenzo and Gerry Mira said the issuance of the TRO was “judicial interference” and “contrary to the law.”

Cesafi said Aying, a member of the University of San Carlos Baby Warriors, failed to meet the two-year residency requirement and “misled” the screening committee by submitting a blank Form 137 (Permanent School Record).

“He submitted a document intended to smokescreen his ineligibility to play,” said Cesafi Commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy Jr. in an affidavit.

Aying was a top player of the Don Bosco Technological Center before moving to Manila in 2012 to enroll in San Beda College. He returned to Cebu this year, when his coach was hired by USC.

The two-year residency rule for high school and college athletes is aimed at preventing “piracy” among Cesafi’s 10-member private schools.

The association said “Cesafi as a duly organized and independent organization has the sole prerogative to determine and pass decisions on issues concerning its members. Its decisions pertaining to such matters are not subject to judicial review.”

Aying was supposed to play in a Sept. 18 match and the court order of Regional Trial Court Judge Simeon Dumdum was served as the game was about to begin at the Cebu Coliseum about 5 p.m.

Cesafi officials instead chose to call off games for the junior basketball league where four schools are vying in the semi-finals.

The judge has set Sept. 26 for a hearing on the petition for injunction filed by Aying’s parents.

“We will just wait for the concerned parties to make a move because that’s the procedure we follow in court. The court will just wait for the parties. If there are issues to be settled, then we will do so,” Dumdum told Cebu Daily News.

The Aying’s family lawyer Donato Gonzales earlier said the Cesafi risked being cited in contempt of court by defying the 20-day TRO which mandated the association to “allow Scott Aying to play beginning today in the games of the 13th Cesafi Season.”

The Ayings said it was “unfair” to disqualify their son a day before the opening of the tournament when his name was earlier accepted in the lineup.

The parents said their son was “humiliated” when he was shouted at and told to get off the basketball court as he was about to play last Aug. 3 in the first game of USC against the University of the Visayas.

DONT INTERFERE

Cesafi, in its motion for reconsideration, cited Supreme Court rulings that caution against intervening in sporting events should be exercised.

“History and jurisprudence is replete with instructions that courts should be circumspect and should not interfere especially when a case hovers upon this territory. The TRO of the honorable court will open up the floodgates that will render the existence and functions of CESAFI nugatory and will eventually inundate the courts of law with suits involving similar issues,” said the Cesafi lawyers.

The sports association asked the court to to reconsider its Sept. 18 decision to issue a TRO allowing Aying to play.

Cesafi invoked a Supreme Court ruling that states that “if legal notions were allowed to intrude in every level in the enforcement of rules of sporting events, it will result to anarchy and chaos as virtually every decision by an umpire or referee or sports judge could be subject to question.”

“Spectators will then have to await the result of sporting events, not from rafters or media but from announcements made by judges through court personnel reading aloud legal decisions,” it said.

Cesafi said that in issuing the TRO the court seemed to have already judged the main issue of Aying’s eligibility to play.

“The court vacated the decision of the Cesafi Board of Trustees disqualifying Mr. Aying from playing in the 2013 Cesafi Season which is beyond the pale of its jurisdiction,” they said.

They said Cesafi chose to postpone all basketball games for the junior level “until they could sort it out and ask clarification from the honorable court.”

The sports association said that “playing in a sporting event is never a right but a privilege contingent upon requirements of eligibility” and that Aying’s parents were unable to show their son had a clear right in the first place.

It said Cesafi, as the governing body of the sporting event, has the right to check the qualifications of its participants and that games follow rules set up and agreed to by all its members.

Commissioner Tiukinhoy Jr said said the Screening Committee was “misled” when it earlier approved Aying’s qualification before this year’s tournament began.

“On its face the Screening Committee had no way of ascertaining the previous schools Mr. Aying attended. It turned out only after it was brought to our attention that he was in fact enrolled before at and played for Don Bosco Technical School, a Cesafi member school, before transferring to San Beda College,” the commissioner said.

For this reason, Aying was disqualified from playing ths year.