Build up to the opening round of games for the Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges (UPAC) Basketball Championship on March 5 at the University of Ghana just got another twist following the withdrawal of University of Professional Studies (UPSA) from the championship.
The institution has been replaced by Pentecost University College who featured in last year’s competition and warm up games for this year’s edition despite not being part of the original set of teams penned to participate in the tournament.
This year’s UPAC Championship will take place between March 5 and April 16 and is headlined by world best-selling deodorant Rexona.
Speaking to Basketballghana.com, Chief Executive Officer of Rite Sports Limited, organizers of the tournament, Yaw Sakyi Afari, says the decision was taken in the aftermath of UPSA ‘s apparent mindset to boycott the games as a result of the institution getting stripped off its’ hosting rights.
He said,”Considering the pedigree of the Championship and our-Rite Sports-fervent strive to attain professional apogee, we considered UPSA venue not ready to host the Zone A games this Saturday as work needed to be done on the backboards, hence the decision to move the games to University of Ghana.”
UPSA was scheduled to host Zone A games involving the institutions team, Ghana Technology University (Accra), Ho Polytechnic and Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). However, the poor state of UPSA’s basketball court meant organizers had to move the venue to the University of Ghana to the annoyance of the team’s representatives.
The 2016 UPAC Championship is supported by Fanyogo, MTN and CAL Bank in partnership with Basketballghana.com, Y FM, TV3 and Ghana Sports.
