'To be perfectly frank, unless it's done by the ABC this league will never get done at all,' said Australian Marshall from Perth yesterday.

'Rather than keep on saying we will start, I thought it was time to quit. I have plenty of people who still want to put their money into it. But I'm not going to sell a dud.' Marshall, chief executive of the Western Australian Basketball Federation, had planned to launch a league with teams in Australia (two), New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore as well as Hong Kong.

The league had a tentative start date of December this year regardless, Marshall once said, of whether the ABC gave its approval. But in June this year the six would-be team owners voted five-to-one to seek the ABC sanction after all.

Their turnaround followed the re-election of Hong Kong's Carl Ching Men-ky to a third term as ABC president in June. Ching himself is bidding to set up a similar league but in Asian countries only and has joined forces in this venture with former US Congressman Ralph Harding who had also planned a league of his own.

Effectively, with Harding and Ching in cahoots and Marshall out of the game, it looks like there is now just one viable Asian league where once there were three candidates.

At the same congress at which Ching was re-elected, the ABC signed a US$4 million deal with Hong Kong-based Asia Sports marketing which gives the exclusive rights for trans-Asia club competitions to Asia Sports.

Ching and Harding's joint venture would contravene those exclusive rights, say Asia Sports, but they are still pressing on.

According to Harding all is rosy in the garden. After previously being rivals and almost ending up opponents in court, he and Ching are working together to form a league.

Their league is provisionally called the Asian Basketball Association.

'It's looking very good,' said Harding yesterday from his home in Pocatello, Idaho.

'We have a substantial backer, which is a multi-national firm but I can't reveal who it is yet.'