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The man behind the plan to start a 'whites only basketball league' in the U.S. is the same man who tried to take Teresa Perozzi's championship belt away from her.

Last week Don 'Moose' Lewis announced the start-up of the All-American Basketball Alliance.

The new professional league would be for "Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league."

In press interviews Lewis said: "There's nothing hatred about what we're doing. I don't hate anyone of colour. But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here's a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like."

Lewis claimed he wanted to stress the fundamentals rather than 'streetball'."

He wants to have 12 franchises in the southern part of the U.S.

Lewis said: "Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?" he said. "That's the culture today, and in a free country we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction."

Perozzi said she's ironed out her differences with Lewis after the debacle in Trinidad. Perozzi had won the WIBC middleweight championship fight against Scroller Carrington in 2005. Perozzi was presented with her title belt by WIBC president Lewis in the ring, but then he tried to take it back claiming that he had not been paid all the fees owed to him by promoter Boxu Potts.

Perozzi later got the belt back, but was never officially recgonized by the WIBC as the champ.

She said three years later the two met in Germany where Perozzi was fighting for several titles.

Flawed

"He was absolutely fine. I had no problems with him. He apologized for the misunderstanding, realizing it had nothing to do with me and it wasn't my fault, but had to deal with Boxu Potts."

When asked about a whites only league, Perozzi said: "I don't like it. I don't know what he's thinking. What's wrong with having black people there? In this day and age, to do something like that, I just don't understand it."

"That doesn't surprise me about him."

Roderick Spencer, Bermuda's national men's basketball coach, said the whole premise is flawed.

"He can not claim there's nothing racist about it if the criteria is race on who's eligible to participate.

"The argument that only white players can play 'fundamental basketball' is degrading within itself. Even in the NBA you have white players who play 'streetball' - Jason Williams for example - so I don't understand the logic behind what he's saying. His logic is flawed in so many areas."

He said most European teams are almost all Anglo-saxon, there's a combination of Boston Celtics style basketball as well as L.A. Lakers style basketball.

"That has no bearing on race or nationality."

The national team coach added that NBA players like Gilbert Arenas, who is currently serving an indefinite suspension for a handgun violation, shouldn't be the justification for starting a new league.

"You have idiots of every race. I wouldn't even begin to justify him."[[In-content Ad]]

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