Former Canberra Gunners coach Frank Arsego will have to wait a little longer to return to the National Basketball League after the league announced yesterday the Singapore Slingers would not be a part of the 2008-09 season.
Arsego joined the Slingers at the start of July as an assistant to head coach Gordie McLeod.
The move was to be his return to the NBL after a stint with the New Zealand Breakers in 2004-05.
The Slingers were the third team to drop out of this year's competition with the Sydney Kings and Brisbane Bullets removed from the league last month.
The Kings failed to make player payments and the Bullets could not find a financial backer.
Slingers managing director Bob Turner said increasing travel costs were to blame for the Slingers' demise.
''The board of the Slingers took the painful but necessary decision to leave the NBL and pursue the possibility of playing in a professional league in Asia instead,'' Turner said.
The Slingers will be inviting some of the top professional teams from Asia's basketball powerhouses China, Korea, Japan, Philippines and even the Middle-East and Europe, as well as clubs from the NBL, to play in a series of challenge matches known as the Slingers Challenge Series 2008-09.
The Canberra Times understands Arsego has committed to the Slingers until McLeod finishes his duties with the Australian Boomers Olympic team.
Arsego is the second Gunner to be stung by a team's withdrawal from the league.
Anthony Petrie signed a two-year contract with the Bullets in April, but a week later the club announced it did not have a financial backer.
The Wollongong Hawks have since signed Petrie.
NBL interim chief executive Chuck Harmison said yesterday the Slingers, the first Asian team to compete in the NBL, had pulled out of the competition permanently.
When the Slingers joined an expanded NBL in 2006-07 the franchise agreed to cover all travel costs, an arrangement which eventually led to its downfall.
With eastern seaboard powers Sydney and Brisbane both financial casualties for the coming NBL season it leaves only 10 teams nine in Australia plus the New Zealand Breakers with a six-team finals format instead of eight.
Each of the eight clubs will still play 30 matches in the home and away season which begins on September 13.
After undertaking an extensive internal review, the Slingers and their major backer, the Singapore Sports Council, decided they could no longer play in the NBL.
Harmison said the review concluded the future of the Slingers lay closer to home, rather than in a league based thousands of kilometres away.
''Instead, the team is looking at setting up its own local Asian professional league, and we wish them well with that venture,'' Harmison said.
He said the spiralling cost of international travel was a major factor in the Slingers' decision, with the price of jet fuel more than doubling over the past 12 months.
''With no slowdown in sight, the negative impact of this unanticipated cost blowout was likely to critically affect the team's business model in the long term,'' he said. ''Following the review, the Slingers indicated they could not maintain their original commitment to cover all team flight costs to and from Singapore and made a formal request to enter the NBL Travel Pool, which equalises the overall cost of airfares across our other teams.
''After due deliberation, the league made it clear this was not an option,'' Harmison said. with AAP
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