Sport

Crazy mass brawl sees 13 players ejected from Australia-Philippines basketball game

Crazy mass brawl sees 13 players ejected from Australia-Philippines basketball game

By Stephen Barry

An international basketball match turned into a farcical mass brawl, which saw 13 players ejected from the game.

It's impossible to catalogue all the blows landed in the World Cup qualifier between Australia and Philippines, but flying elbows, kicks and punches were delivered by both sides.

There was even a chair thrown too.

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The Philippines, trailing 79-48, kicked things off when RR Pogoy roughly shoved Australia’s Nathan Sobey to the ground. Daniel Kickert replied with an elbow to Pogoy's face.

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Then, all hell broke loose.

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After all that, nine Philippines players were ejected (as well as four Aussies), leaving only three eligible to remain on court for the Manilla hosts.

They forfeited the game soon after (behind 89-53) as two more players were fouled out before the end of the third-quarter.

Former world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao even tweeted about the game.

FIBA, basketball's governing body, said: "Following the incident that occured in the third quarter of the Philippines-Australia game on Monday in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 Asian Qualifiers, FIBA will now open disciplinary proceedings against both teams.

"The decision(s) will be communicated in the coming days."

Anthony Moore, the Chief Executive of Basketball Australia, said: "Basketball Australia deeply regrets the incident in tonight’s match between the Boomers and the Philippines in Manila. We are extremely disappointed with what happened and our role in it.

"This is not the spirit in which sport should be played and certainly not in the spirit in which we aim to play basketball.

"We apologise to our fans and will await the penalties to be handed down.”

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