April 16, 2020
 
New basketball association set up by all-time Japanese greats and the FIBA Secretariat curse.
By: Graham C. Lim, member of the National Press Club since 1989.
 
A newly-formed Japanese pro basketball advisory association, the Japan Basketball Improvement Conference (JBIC), has been set up by legendary Japanese Olympians.
 
The association has been established to assist the Japan Basketball Association (JBA), the national basketball federation recognized by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), in any way and help develop young athletes improve their skill set.
 
The JBIC came into the picture after FIBA suspended JBA in 2015 in a sinister attempt by then-FIBA secretary-general, the late Patrick Baumann, and FIBA treasurer Ingo Weiss to control the Japanese basketball through its marketing policies.
 
The two even went to the extent of putting their lackeys in a sensitive position such as the president, secretary-general and the chairman to run the JBA.
 
This was the same strategy employed by Baumann and his godfather Borislav Stankovic, both of whom will now have to account for their earthly sins before the Lord Almighty, in controlling other national basketball federations around the world such as the Philippines, Lebanon, Brazil, and the Russian Republic.
 
It wants dictatorial control of the marketing programs of the independent national basketball federations to suit their devious plans of cornering all the revenues related to the sport.
 
The FIBA secretariat, led by Baumann, wanted to control the Japan Basketball Association more than a year before the July 2020 Tokyo Olympics that eventually was postponed to July of next year amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
 
It wants to get the best marketing offer from top corporations in Japan for the Tokyo Olympics not for the betterment for the sport but rather also to suit their personal needs.
 
Hilariously, Baumann and his stooges designated a lady volleyball athlete to be the JBA president while appointing a football player to run the association as its secretary-general.
 
With the demise of Baumann, Ingo Weiss took over the FIBA marketing group to stay on course with their demonic strategy in partnership with a selected few in the FIBA family.
 
Top on the marketing list of the FIBA secretariat was to secure the sponsorship of Toyota. But with the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, any corporate agreement with the International Olympic Committee and Organizers of the Games has been held in abeyance.
 
Those plans initiated by Baumann – once a member of the International Olympic Committee – to control Japanese basketball was successful but to make sure that the JBA is run with some form of check-and-balance mechanics, legendary Japanese basketball athletes and former Olympians came forth to form the JBIC in support of the JBA and chart the future of young athletes who engage in the sport.
 
Through the JBIC, the all-time greats in Japan basketball have offered pieces of advice to the JBA regarding its now-stalled plans for the Japan Olympics, which originally were slated from July 24-August 9 this year.
 
Among them was the highly spirited Mr. Yoshida Masahiko, the former Japan national men’s head coach during the 1976 Montreal Olympics.  He occupies one of the JBIC executive positions as Vice Secretary-General.
 
Regarding the JBIC, the Japan Times newspaper, in its February 15, 2016 issue,  reported that a month before there was an informal gathering of the former Japanese basketball players and coaches from the men’s national teams that participated in the Olympics during the 1960s and 1970s.
 
Before long, in late January 2016, it officially registered as an incorporated association (JBIC) with over 30 members.
 
One of the JBIC’s biggest concerns is the JBA and Japanese basketball’s future insofar as the competitiveness and development of the sport in their home country.
 
“When it comes to international relations, Japan used to have ties with the United States, which supported Japanese basketball’s foundation,” said Yoshida, who serves as the JBIC’s Vice Secretary-General. “Japan’s status and its measures (for competitiveness) have degraded.”
 
Here’s a brief info on Coach Yoshida Masahiko.

Yoshida was connected with Tokyo’s Gyosei high school, a well-known Catholic-based and French-featured education institution.  He was a very outstanding basketball player during his prime.    So it was natural for him to move up to the Rikkyo University in Tokyo, a mission school of Anglican Church, in 1959. He continued playing for the university that was one of the collegiate basketball powerhouses in Japan. He was a household name in the collegiate basketball world because of his remarkable star-level skills.
 
As a result, he was recruited by the Nippon Kokan, one of the top four commercial teams in Japan following his university graduation.
 
On the Nippon Kokan squad, Yoshida was a key figure and a starter.
 
In 1967, he played for Team Japan in the FIBA World Basketball Championship (now known as the FIBA World Cup) in Uruguay. He later became an assistant coach for Team Japan during the 1972 Olympics in Munich.  Coach Yoshida Masahiko then was elevated to the head coaching post during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.
 
As I continue to write about the once tradition-steeped Japanese basketball that was manipulated by the FIBA secretariat, Mafia-style, I am always reminded of what the demonic three stooges – Baumann, Stankovic, and Robert Elphinston – also did to the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP), destroying and then illegally recognize another fledgling but a moneyed group for millions of reasons, one of which is for FIBA to secure a major sponsorship from them and laugh all the way to the bank.
 
The corrupt practices remain in place even with the death of Baumann and Stankovic, and unless there is another group to govern the FIBA, the extent of corruption in the organization will remain a mystery.
 
It’s time to rectify the malpractices if the FIBA is to repair its tarnished image and regain credibility.
 
For the last two decades, I have been hounded relentlessly by former government officials in my country of birth in conspiracy with one of the FIBA Secretariat’s corporate partners and current self-styled basketball leaders who don’t want me to get in their way to control the sport by hook or by crook that in the process, will expose their misdeeds before the general public.
 
Maybe the injustice that I have suffered through the years has somehow been answered by the Universal Karma that took the lives of Baumann and Stankovic.
 
May the same Universal Karma will open the eyes of the current FIBA leaders before it’s too late. Otherwise, the same curse that befell the old guards may come and haunt them if they don’t shape up and mend their corrupt ways. Cleansing the organization of the scalawags is the only option remaining.
 
The curse will likely also befall on the leadership of the current national basketball federation in the Philippines if it continues with its corrupt and dictatorial practices.
 
The injustice it had done to the tradition-steeped Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP), discarding its FIBA recognition of more than eight decades in favor of a fledgling but money group without any proper legal procedures, and in total disregard of the 2007 Bangkok Agreement,
in sinister collusion with Baumann and the old FIBA secretariat and even up to this time with the new regime.
 
If justice cannot be served here on earth then expect the long hands of the Universal Karma law to catch up with these usurpers in the days ahead.
 
As for me, I am grateful to have met the JBIC Executive Board members in November 2019. Making up the JBIC Executive Board are all-time Asian basketball great Masatomo Taniguchi (Olympians in 1972 Munich) as the JBIC Chairman; Kunihiko Nakamura (Olympian in 1965 Tokyo Games) as the JBIC Secretary-General; Masao Tachibana (former JBA Board member); Takao Imai (former JBA Board and FIBA referee); Shinji Ichikawa (former national player); Kiyohide Kuwata and Kazuko Oono (both Olympians from the 1976 Montreal Games); Hayato Kusakai (former Japan league official); JBIC Vice-Chair’s Masami Kase (former JBA Board member) and Shigeru Harada (former Japan women national head coach).
Taniguchi, however, quit as JBIC Chairman last month (March 2020) due to serious health issues.  He was replaced by  Kiyohide Kuwata, a former Olympian during the 1976 Montreal Games, effective April (this month).
Moreover, Kunihiko Nakamura and Mr. Masahiko Yoshida also resigned due to health concerns and were replaced by Shinji Ichikawa, a former Japanese national athlete.
 
The JBIC Supreme Advisors include Toshiichiroc Abe (former JBA Board member), Kuninaka Taketomi (former JBA Executive Director), and Syouji Kamata (1960 Rome Olympics player).