WATCH: Monster brawl breaks out between Australia and Philippines
WILD SCENES
A WILD brawl has erupted between Australia and the Philippines resulting in 13 players being ejected from the stadium.
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW
The game was stopped for more than 30 minutes as officials reviewed the ugly and violent scenes before deciding the match should continue.
Australian basketball great Shane Heal, who was commentating at the time, said the decision to continue the game was 'laughable'.
The incident , which occurred during the world cup qualifier in the Philippines, has been widely condemned and Basketball Australia are expected to hold a press conference this morning.
The Chief Executive of Basketball Australia Anthony Moore issued the following statement.
"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," he said.
“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.”
Waking up to the disgraceful #Basketbrawl overseas...some of the scenes are sickening try explaining that to your 7 year old! I hope my man @sobes2zero and the rest of his #Boomers team mates are ok #CowardPunch pic.twitter.com/emgjktHsWi
— matty stewart (@StewartMatty) July 2, 2018
‘Dreadful, shocking, disgraceful’ ... are the police looking at the footage of Philippines #basketbrawl https://t.co/wDnDznw2mj
— wally mason (@walmason) July 3, 2018
This just happened. After one of the wildest on-court brawls in recent memory, the Philippines team pauses to pose for a selfie, like there’s something to celebrate pic.twitter.com/fTXAaBA5lp
— Mitchell Scott (@WhippingBoySEN) July 2, 2018
Philippines and Australian national basketball teams doing their best to make the game interesting with massive brawl... #FIBAWorldCup #FIBA #Basketbrawl pic.twitter.com/mLo5T8qvCU
— Absolute Sports Network (@absolutesn) July 2, 2018
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
* Readers are encouraged to use their full details below to ensure comment legitimacy. Comments are the opinions of readers and do not represent the views of Newsport or its staff. Comments containing unlawful, obscene, defamatory or abusive material will not be published.