City Oilers win tribunal battle, set for playoff showdown with Jaguars

The City Oilers have won off-court. It remains to be seen who will stop them on it. 

FUBA’s three-man Juridical and Appeals Council announced earlier today that it had dismissed the appeal lodged by the JT Jaguars and Namuwongo Blazers, querying the eligibility and registration of City Oilers signings Chad Bowie and Kurt Curry Wegscheider.

That paved the way for the start of the best-of-three playoff series between the Oilers and JT Jaguars, which had been postponed last week until the ruling of the Council. 

Jaguars and Namuwongo queried the eligibility and registration of Bowie and Wegscheider on five grounds, including failure to verify the two players’ physical signatures and invalid acceptance of scanned documents.

The tribunal found that the “appellants did not adduce sufficient evidence to substantiate their claims… On the contrary, evidence indicates that the City Oilers complied with the rules and guidance duly provided by the Competitions Council in relation to the registration of the players”.

The tribunal did, however, concede that there was “ambiguity in the applicable rules”. It explained ”that Article 3.05(h) of the FUBA Competition Rules provides that “from the time of issuance of a LOC, the player has fourteen (14) days within which to physically append their signature on the hard copy of the club bio-data form.”

However, the rule is silent as to whether this must occur specifically at the Secretariat or whether it permits remote execution. Furthermore, there is no explicit provision requiring in-person submission at the Secretariat, thereby rendering the appellant’s interpretation unduly restrictive”.

The tribunal proceeded to offer guidance to FUBA on player registration and transfers going forward. It then proceeded to announce its ruling on the petition. It ruled that:  

● The petition and appeal challenging the eligibility of Chad Bowie and Kurt Curry Wegscheider are hereby dismissed.

● The registration and clearance of the said players by the Competitions Council is upheld.

● No procedural irregularity is attributable to City Oilers BBC, and the club and indeed any other club must and should not be punished for the mistakes and irregularities (if any) of the competitions council and as such City Oilers BBC cannot be held liable for any commission or omission amounting to irregularities as the said players was cleared and verified by Competitions council which is mandated to do so.

That clears the way for Bowie and Wegscheider’s NBL debuts tomorrow at Lugogo, which the Oilers hope will launch the rescue mission of a campaign that has so far survived a terrible regular and a now-famous appeals’ tribunal.

Defeated off it, the Jaguars, who beat the Oilers twice in the regular season, must now settle the case on court.