Bowen eyes ‘improvements’ for CBA programme

Basketball Association presidential hopeful, Jules Bowen, has lauded the Central Basketball Association (CBA) player initiative started last season adding that once elected, he will find ways of improving the programme to benefit all teams competing in the association’s top league.
“Great programme and we’re not going to stop something that is great, we are just going to make it greater. We are going to continue this programme and look at introducing even more players to all the teams because it has to be a balanced playing field and some of the teams have international players while some don’t. So, if one team realises that the other does not have any international players, they expect it to be a walkover so we are going to try and balance the playing field,” he said. 
The CBA programme is a U.S.-based initiative through which professional players are placed into leagues across the world at minimal cost to the host clubs or teams.
Last season, Division One teams were asked to contribute EC$2,500 towards securing two players for the season.
Bowen said his goal is for all teams to be in a position to acquire players through the CBA initiative.
“We are going to look at negotiating going forward so that each team can, somehow, try to afford these players as part of these set-ups, and that’s why we are going to build capacity so they can self-sustain themselves, and once they can do that then they can generate funding and start bringing in players to help the team go forward,” he said.
Bowen said he would also open dialogue with the CBA in an effort to make the programme even more affordable to the teams.
“We have to look at what’s there now and then we try and negotiate with the CBA, all the stakeholders involved and try to let them know what our vision is going forward. In economics which was one of my areas of study, if you have a broader field of players coming in then you are spending more money, so in terms of the amount of people who are coming, we can say that last year you had three which may have cost $9,000. This year you may have 20 and if you got $2,000 for each player we would still be in a position of strength,” he said.
The former president, who served from 2009 to 2013, will challenge current executive member, Kebra Nanton, for the top spot during the elections slated for October.