With no end in sight for the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Chooks-to-Go Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League has decided to postpone its fourth season to 2021.
This was the conclusion league commissioner Kenneth Duremdes came up with in a memo released June 1, 2020.
“The 2021-21 MPBL Season is hereby suspended and we will start our next season on June 12, 2021.”
Earlier, Duremdes had said they are willing to push through with the second of five seasons that Chooks-to-Go will back this year, even without television partner ABS-CBN S+A.
Duremdes later retracted that statement, saying that it made matters worse for the league, in addition to the banning of contact sports for the duration of the general community quarantine.
With this, the league is advising all of its club teams to continue honoring their player contracts by at least 20-percent of the agreed-upon salary.
If the country would allow contact sports later in the year, Duremdes is encouraging all teams to enter a “protracted pre-season tournament”.
For the Chooks-to-Go Lakan Cup which has at most six games remaining, the league looks to finish it out behind closed doors. The Final Four teams are the San Juan Knights, the Davao Occidental Tigers, the Makati Super Crunch, and the Basilan Steel.
