MANILA Chooks TM won't be making the trip to Croatia after all.
The Filipino club made the tough decision to pull out from the 2021 Fiba 3x3 World Tour Lipik Challenger, failing to secure the players' visas on time.
With no Croatian embassy in the Philippines, the players' visa had to be applied thorugh the Jakarta embassy. Team management submitted the requirements on May but on Thursday have yet to receive the visas.
Chico Lanete, Mac Tallo, Zach Huang, and Dennis Santos won't be seeing action in the event, set this weekend, forcing the organizers to scamper for a replacement team.
Manila Chooks TM has been training at Quezon Convention Center in Lucena and recently added Mark Yee to its pool.
It was supposed to be a shot at redemption for the Philippines side after missing out on the knockout rounds of the 2021 Fiba 3x3 World Tour Doha Masters in February.
"There are things that we have no control of and this is one of them," said Chooks 3x3 owner Ronald Mascariñas. "Since 2019, this is the first time that we had to pull out from a FIBA 3x3 tournament and the players were really looking forward to it."
"The challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic made it hard for us to obtain our deligation's visas."
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