Basketball Ireland CEO Bernard O'Byrne said that the sport had been "treated unfairly" by the authorities who "didn't trust" them to run off their games safely in the wake of today's decision to cancel the 2020-21 Men's Super League and Division One seasons.
The Men's National Competitions Committee announced today that it "had no alternative" but to cancel the 2020-21 season, with the government's announcement that the country is moving to Level 3 guidelines next month.
Level 3 does not allow indoor team sports to take place, with no matches or events permitted.
Speaking on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio One, O'Byrne said yesterday's updated guidelines offered no leeway for basketball to return and acknowledged it was "a bad day" for the sport.
"It's a big disappointment for all of us," O'Byrne said.
"We wanted to get back on January 9th and yesterday's announcement just knocks that on the head and doesn't really give us any light at the end of the tunnel
"So, in fairness to our clubs and supporters, I don't think there's any point in keeping everybody on a drip-feed of hope.
"So, it's better to say, look, season cancelled, and if we can get back at the end of February and March, we'll look at maybe having a Cup competition or some kind of competition to cover what are normally the last two months of our season.
"It's a bad day."
The basketball chief said efforts had been made to lobby the government but said he had to conclude that they weren't being trusted to run it properly.
"We haven't really had any interaction except for the lobbying that we've tried. We've put forward a case of increased testing and behind closed doors games.
"We put forward the case that all the leagues around Europe are playing their national championships with many countries that have Covid rates that are far in excess of Ireland.
"We hoped that they would trust us, that we would do it properly and safely. We put a lot of energy into it. But just that one-liner in the guidelines means that we think we've been treated unfairly and they obviously don't trust us to do things properly."
O'Byrne said the financial considerations of the clubs were central to the decision to call it now.
"Nearly all our clubs have contracts with players so they have to wind down those contracts. They have to speak to their sponsors. So, that was really the main reason we moved. Because there are financial implications. And there will still be losses as a result of pulling the season.
"They will have to be addressed by the government or by a resilience fund in 2021. We just didn't want the losses and the financial impact to keep mounting so we decided to call a halt."
As regards the future, O'Byrne continues to hold out the possibility that a Cup competition may be run-off in March and April and expressed the hope the situation would return to normal by September.
"If we can get down to Level 2 or persuade the powers-that-be to trust us for the last two months of our season, I think the clubs would love some kind of basketball anyway. But the actual Super League and Division One season definitely won't go ahead.
"The women's games committees are having meetings over the weekend. They haven't decided yet so we'll have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for that.
"Our season will begin in September. If you couldn't hope for that, you'd almost give up at this stage. But hopefully in September, we will have returned to a normal situation and we can have a good 2021-22 season."
