In the appeal case between the Borgerhout Squirrels and the KBBSF, the Belgian Court of Arbitration of Sports (BAS) decided in favor of the Belgian Baseball and Softball Federation (KBBSF) this week, which means that the Squirrels will indeed be relegated into the 2nd Division in Belgian Baseball.
The BAS ruled that there was enough proof that the player license of Paul Spoelders was not correctly filed by the due date July 1st, 2009 and therefore the decision by the federation to rule each game where he played a forfeit was upheld. This in fact led to more than three forfeits and with that Borgerhout has to go down into the 2nd Division.
Because of the additional voluntary withdrawal from the 1st Division by the Brussels Kangaroos, the Belgian elite league will start into the season on April 10th with only seven instead of eight teams.
Although Gent SEIKO-Optical Knights offered their candidacy already in January to complete the 1st division to an even number of teams, they received a final – and negative – answer only yesterday evening. The Knights were runner-up in 2nd division last year and determent to make investments to join D1, but will not be allowed to make the promotion. “Regarding level of play” is the reason according to KBBSF/FRBBS-president Jérôme Legris, who’s signature of KBBSF/FRBBS always contains his uniform number of his team in 2nd division.
It seems the KBBSF/FRBBS rather has an irregular 1st division competition with gaps of weekends off on different dates for every team. Additionally 2nd division has to play with 10 teams, forcing teams to play extra games on weekdays and cutting the previously announced summer break from 4 to 2 weekends.