On 12th November, the City Oilers announced the signing of U23 Silverbacks player Peter Obleng ahead of the Elite 16 scheduled to be in Nairobi, Kenya starting 28th November.
However, Obleng will not feature for the 10-time champions for one simple reason.
Following the end of the NBL season in Uganda, Peter Obleng took his trade to South Sudan and played for Fox Basketball in the tournament that was deciding who would get to represent South Sudan in the Road to BAL.
Fortunately for them, Fox emerged as the Champions and went on to participate in the group phase to qualify for the Elite 16.
Fox won 3 of their 5 games and qualified for the Elite 16 on a wild card.
Peter Obleng played for Fox in all the games during their group phase in Zimbabwe.
However, the rules of the competition state;
“The group phase and the Elite 16 are two stages of the same competition. Therefore, a player cannot play the same competition with two different teams”
As per this rule, Peter Obleng is ineligible to play for City Oilers or any other team except Fox at the Elite 16.
With this, Obleng will have to wait until City Oilers advance to the next stage to be eligible to play for them.
The Oilers are expected to travel to Kenya on Wednesday and their first game is expected to be against Fox Basketball on Thursday 28th.
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