MANILA — The era of foreign players making waves in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is set to end.
Frank Gusi said on Tuesday that beginning 2020, or the 96th season, the league will not anymore let the foreign student-athletes to play in the league.
“The NCAA has decided this year to allow all foreign athletes to see action only until Season 95 or next year,” the Perpetual Help official, who is the chairman of the NCAA ManCom for Season 94, said during the PSA Forum at the Tapa King restaurant inside Farmer’s Market in Quezon City.
This basically means that the last year that the foreign players will see action in the country’s oldest collegiate league will be in 2019 even if some of them, like San Beda’s Eugene Toba, CSB’s Clement Leutcheu, and EAC’s Hamadou Laminou, will still be eligible to play by Season 96.
Curiously, the trend of recruiting foreign players for the men’s basketball contests in the college ranks started in the NCAA, when the Red Lions brought in Sam Ekwe.
Since then, even Cebu’s top college cagefest CESAFI and lower-tier Metro Manila-based leagues like the UCBL and the NAASCU now have teams with a foreign recruit with them. (Ivan Stewart Saldajeno/PNA)
