Flame Basketball Club, a newly promoted team to the Rwanda Basketball League (RBL), has been removed from the topflight by the Rwanda Basketball Federation (FERWABA) for failing to prove it has the required Rwf 100 million. The financial requirement is mandated for all teams in the top league, partly to ensure that their staff is paid and other costs are well met as the teams compete in the topflight. Flame’s removal follows a new regulation introduced by FERWABA last year. As a result, the 2025 season of the league which tips off on January 24 may now be contested by only nine teams. Flame Basketball Club earned their place in RBL for the 2025 following the disqualification of Division 2 runners-up Keplerians who were ineligible due to their affiliation with Kepler BBC, an entity that was already playing in the top division. In an exclusive interview with Times Sport, Fiona Ishimwe, the Executive Director at FERWABA, said that Flame does not meet the financial requirements to be allowed to play in the league. “In order to combat some of the financial problems that are evident in the first division (D1), FERWABA will require all new teams to provide a bank guarantee of one hundred million Rwandan francs (100,000,000 RWF),” reads the regulation. If nothing changes, the teams that will compete in the 2025 season are: APR, PATRIOTS, REG, Kepler, Espoir, UGB, Tigers, ORION and AZOMCO.
