Atoy says no to FSAs

PBA legend and former Mapua coach Atoy Co isn’t convinced that Foreign Student Athletes or FSAs contribute to making locals, whether teammates or not, better basketball players. NCAA did away with “imports” in 2021 and players continue to flourish. UAAP, however, is sticking with FSAs and next season, is considering the addition of one more FSA per team, increasing the player limit to 17. The proposal is for a team to decide which import to play before every game which makes for a confusing situation.

In a recent conversation, Co said it’s the locals who make FSAs better, not the other way around. He recalled when coaching the Cardinals, his team was bannered by 6-9 Allwell Oraeme of Nigeria. Co said Oraeme became a stud after joining Mapua, not before. And when Oraeme’s star shone with back-to-back MVP awards, his attitude changed. Co treated Oraeme like a son but the love wasn’t reciprocal. Oraeme left the country for good in 2017.

Co said the level of basketball in the African countries where FSAs usually come from isn’t as high as in the Philippines. The imports are just tall and basically, raw talent. After playing here, they try their luck in other countries and more often than not, end up in a dead-end street. There are exceptions like Ange Kouame and Malik Diouf, now naturalized citizens, but they’re not in the caliber of Justin Brownlee or Bennie Boatwright.

UAAP’s move to add a second FSA is supposed to address the issue of leaving a team crippled if its FSA is injured like what happened to NU last season. What if the second FSA is injured, will there be a third FSA to call in? The idea of a second FSA doubles a school’s headache of dealing with imports who, on the whole, come to play for pay and desecrate the integrity of college sports. Have you heard of FSAs refusing to practice and just showing up for a game but not before asking for money down? Do you wonder how some FSAs look older than their supposed age?

NBA player Manute Bol had a manufactured birth certificate because in rural Sudan where he hailed, a document like that couldn’t be available. So his age was much lower than it was to accommodate his eligibility for college basketball. Is it the same with some FSAs?

How attached are FSAs to their schools? If the argument is FSAs give a league competitive balance, how can it be if the schools with bigger budgets wind up with superior imports, leading to even more competitive imbalance. FSAs come with hefty price tags, a cause for dissension within a team. Do schools need this kind of problem?