Baseball given rules to follow

via CAAI

Thursday, 30 December 2010 15:00 H S Manjunath

THE National Olympic Committee of Cambodia, or NOCC, has laid out the ground rules for the recently revived Cambodian Baseball Federation to follow if a national team is to be sent to next year’s SEA Games in Indonesia.

Vath Chamroeun, the Secretary General of the NOCC, told a delegation of CBAF officials at a meeting on Tuesday that the baseball federation had to meet several procedural requirements before pitching in for an international event. He said the NOCC was more than pleased with the revival of baseball in the country after a lengthy hiatus, but a clearance to take part in the SEA Games had strict conditions attached, a performance scrutiny by the Ministry of Education being prime among them.

The secretary general said that like any other federation, the CBAF had to produce a convincing performance from its team, keep a clean administrative sheet and establish financial soundness to support a foreign trip. Most importantly, he said the CBAF will have to hold a national championship and prove the team’s mettle.

The NOCC official was responding to proposals by the CBAF to send its team to Indonesia in November next year where baseball would be a medal sport.

The President of the CBAF, Joe Cook, a Cambodian American who is based in Dothan, Alabama, was on the phone with the NOCC secretary general to put forward the federation’s case. He assured the NOCC that the CBAF would do everything in its powers to see that the team made it to Indonesia.

The CBAF president has consistently maintained that he could raise the money needed for the trip.

“We are awaiting official invitations from the SEA Games council and the CBAF has until the middle of next year to make things happen. The ball is in their court and we are here to help them,” said the NOCC secretary general after the meeting.