Board denies UE appeal but returns 2nd bond

The UAAP board yesterday denied University of the East’s appeal on the 24-second violation that was not called against Far Eastern U during their July 26 encounter which the latter won.

“The board has decided to deny the appeal of UE so the results of that game will stand,” said Herc Callanta, the league’s secretary-treasurer, after the meeting at the Big Dome.

Five members of the board – De La Salle, Ateneo de Manila, National U, Santo Tomas and Adamson – voted against the appeal.

UE and Far Eastern U were not allowed to vote since they are the teams involved while UP will only cast its vote in the event of a tie.

The league, however, returned UE’s second P100,000 cash bond.

“The understanding of the board is that the cash bond of P100,000 is only per issue. UE gave P200,000 cash bond, the second cash bond was returned to UE since the appeal was all about the same issue,” Callanta said.

Callanta said that although the board admitted that table officials committed an error, it maintained that teams should live by it .

“The board saw human error, this is not only for basketball but for all sports there is always the possibility of officials committing human error, officials are not infallible,” said Callanta.

“The true essence of sports is that all competitors, all teams would have to learn how to live by these errors after all it evens out. And while it was unfortunate that UE was the one who suffered in this particular error, it is not always UE that will suffer since all member universities are also exposed to this same risk,” he added.

“The board also took into consideration the need to have games decided on the court rather than in the boardroom,” he said.

League commissioner Chito Narvasa, who was in the first part of the meeting as resource person, earlier overruled UE’s appeal on the grounds that although all calls are technical in nature, decisions of the referees are all judgment calls.