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Beijing. A bizarre row over a player’s height caused a Chinese basketball game to be abandoned and sparked violent scenes that left several cars destroyed in Guangdong earlier this week, local media reported on Thursday.

The Dream Basketball League was set up to allow players of “shorter” stature to compete on a level playing field, with a height limit of 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 meters) imposed.

Basketball players are some of the tallest athletes in sport, and China’s own Yao Ming measures 7-foot-6.

However, trouble was brewing when Huizhou Qiaoxing signed Chinese Basketball Association player and three-time national slam-dunk champion Hu Guang, even though his official CBA profile lists him as 1.95 meters.

Huizhou’s opponents in a game scheduled for Monday, Shenzhen Kuruite, refused to take to the court unless Hu’s height was measured, but league organizers refused.

Shenzhen forfeited the game but kept up its complaints the following day, and the league finally agreed to take the tape to the 27-year-old forward.

“Hu bowed his shoulders and bent his neck back,” Shenzhen player Wang Tiecheng told local newspaper the Daily Sunshine. “The first result was 186.5 centimeters, the second time was 187 centimeters.”

League officials, who admitted they had “limited ability and technique in measuring”, nevertheless declared Hu eligible for Tuesday’s monthly final against Zheshang Bank.

Furious Shenzhen fans disrupted the final by continually chanting, “Unfair, too tall!”, and the game, which was broadcast live on television, was abandoned at halftime.

Other spectators, upset the game had been stopped, smashed up five cars with Shenzhen license plates outside Dongguan’s Huangyong Arena.

Basketball

Reuters