Rwandan champions will get an automatic ticket to the 2022 Basketball Africa League (BAL) regular season owing to the fact that the country will host a key part of the tournament – the semi-finals and finals. The decision is also based also on the performance of Rwandas representatives, Patriots Basketball Club, who finished in fourth place during the tournament’s inaugural edition in May this year. The BAL, Africa’s biggest basketball event at club level, brings together 12 clubs from 12 African countries that compete to establish the champions of Africa. In its inaugural season that took place in Kigali, 6 teams gained automatic qualification into the regular season, having been crowned champions in the top basketball nations – Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia and Morocco – on the continent. The remaining 6 teams went through a two-round qualification campaign to secure tickets. Morocco has since been dropped from the six countries with automatic tickets, with its spot awarded to Rwanda. Egyptian giants Zamalek are the reigning BAL champions after they beat Tunisia’s US Monastir 76-63 in this year’s final at Kigali Arena.
