MANILA: No punches could be more expensive than the ones Wynne Arboleda threw.
The hard-nosed Burger King guard was on Monday slapped a ban for the rest of the Philippine Basketball Association season without pay for punching a fan Friday night as Arboleda will lose salaries amounting to P2.73 million until next August.
For taking shots at “the lifeblood” of the league, Arboleda was canned for the rest of the season, never mind if he was furiously provoked by incessant cursing and name-calling by the fan, businessman Alain Katigbak, in the Whoppers’ game against Smart Gilas.
“Even granting that said fan was foul-mouthed and verbally-abusive as confirmed by reports to us, there is a ‘line’ that a PBA player cannot and should not cross: to physically harm a fan,” wrote commissioner Sonny Barrios in his landmark decision.
“Your serious breach of this ‘line’ at this time and in the manner described herein endangers the PBA as being perceived by the public as unwholesome and not deserving of fan support,” he continued.
Arboleda also stands to lose even more if won game and by-phase team bonuses are counted as a player of his caliber certainly commands a hefty sum as far as these aspects are concerned.
The 6-foot sentinel, a gentle person off the court, will not get his P280,000 a month contract from the Whoppers even if he is the son-in-law of team owner Bert Lina.
In fact, team management led by manager and current board chairman Lito Alvarez told Arab News Monday that they will not in any way appeal Arboleda’s case, and that “he could do so on his own.” “I am chairman of the board and never did I join any discussion about the matter,” Alvarez said over the phone. “For us, the PBA is not just about basketball. Burger King is a global brand and it stands by the norms of (conduct of) the league.” Arboleda, who charged Katigbak at courtside after he admitted to “blacking out” because of relentless cursing by the Smart Gilas fan, will be serving the longest suspension ever meted by the league.
A similarly long suspension, the one including Rudy Distrito of Ginebra San Miguel in the mid-1990s, when “The Destroyer” undercut a driving Jeffrey Cariaso and left the Alaska guard withering in pain on the floor, was the only other stiff sanction to date.
