Basketball team told by Ethos they’re not a “commercial asset”
Their slots had already been cancelled twice in three months without notice
Last weekend Imperial’s 1st Basketball team were told as they arrived for a tournament they had organised that their court booking had been given away to a birthday party.
The group had spent hours organising the tournament, that involved multiple matches, teams and referees. The tickets cost £4 online and £5 on the door and when people started turning up at midday, they were turned away by Ethos staff.
The students were told that they simply weren’t as much “of a commercial asset for us” as the birthday party that was already going on in the space at Ethos, on Prince’s Gardens.
The Ethos receptionist also told them: “It is very simple. If I don’t give it to you I will be fine tomorrow. If I don’t give it to them, I will lose my job. So you don’t get the court.”
Their slot has been given away twice without any notice
They were told that as their Easter tournament was a not a BUCS fixture, they didn’t have priority in the double booking.
This is not the first time Ethos has double booked the team. Despite practicing at the same time every Saturday since the beginning of the academic year, their slot has been given away twice without any notice. On one occasion, a match with UCL had been scheduled. The rivals then had to be sent back, and the referees reimbursed from Basketball’s own funds, despite Sport Imperial’s error.
In response, Sport Imperial had this to say: “Supporting student sport is the core of Sport Imperial’s mission, and we are sorry that our commitment was not demonstrated in this case.”
“Following the incident, Grant Danskine, Acting Head of Sport, met with the IC Men’s Basketball Captain and the IC Basketball Club Chair, together with the ICU Deputy President for Clubs and Societies, to apologise and confirm that student club bookings should not be cancelled in favour of private or commercial bookings.”
“A plan was agreed with the Basketball Club and Imperial College Union to make sure this does not happen again in the future.”
Sport Imperial is currently in flux, as the last head of sport left before a replacement could be found, leaving the current operations manager to take over as acting head.
Ben Howitt, the union’s Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) said he was “disappointed and upset at the rudeness displayed to the Basketball committee over the weekend. The event has highlighted some clear retraining needs, and I will be working with Sport Imperial and Union staff members to make sure that incidents like this do not happen again in the future, and that clubs have access to the space required for their activities.”
The Captain of the Men’s 1st team, Filippo Baldini told FELIX he’d asked Sport Imperial “to make the rules more clear, because at the desk they never know who’s right or what to do.”
He went on to say that although staff from Sport Imperial “sounded serious about making these changes ... experience keeps me quite sceptical.”
