--- title: Australia Basketball Game Devolves Into a Fight description: A 2019 World Cup qualifying match between the Australian and Philippines basketball teams resulted in a giant fight on the court. canonical: https://time.com/5328740/australia-basketball-philippines/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-02T21:18:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:53:38.652Z og:title: Basketball Game Devolved Into a Giant On-Court Brawl og:description: The Australian and Philippine teams og:url: https://time.com/5328740/australia-basketball-philippines/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf1af045f5bffcb9/6989347986f68e31d86e98f8/australia-philippines-basketball.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2864 og:image:height: 1611 og:image:alt: BASKET-WC-PHI-AUS og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Basketball Game Devolved Into a Giant On-Court Brawl twitter:description: The Australian and Philippine teams twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf1af045f5bffcb9/6989347986f68e31d86e98f8/australia-philippines-basketball.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Basketball Game Devolves Into a Massive On-Court Brawl > Sponsored content. 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Philippine (blue) and Australian (yellow) players engage in a brawl during their FIBA World Cup Asian qualifier game at the Philippine arena in Bocaue town, Bulacan province, north of Manila on July 2, 2018\. - Australia won by default 89-53. TED ALJIBE—AFP/Getty Images  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Jul 2, 2018 9:18 PM UTC The soccer [World Cup](http://time.com/5310099/world-cup-russia-watch-teams-players/) isn’t the only international sport tournament out there: there’s also the 2019 [basketball](http://time.com/5327813/lebron-james-nba-la-lakers/) World Cup [coming up](http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/qualifiers). And while there’s [plenty of drama](http://time.com/5328519/neymar-stepped-on/) going down in Russia’s stadiums right now, there’s also lots of drama heating up the basketball courts elsewhere. The teams from Australia and the Philippines were duking it out in a qualifying match on Tuesday when the two sides ended up devolving from play into a full-on fight on the court involving 13 players. The game, taking place in a Philippine arena north of Manila, ended with Australia winning by default 89 to 53\. But the incident may just overshadow performances from both teams. A statement from the chief executive of Basketball Australia noted that they “deeply regret” the “incident.” “We are extremely disappointed with what happened and our role in it,” [the statement continued](https://twitter.com/ABSCBNNews/status/1013801138364170240). “This is not the spirit in which sport should be played and certainly not in the spirit in which we aim to play basketball. The fight appears to have gotten underway after Aussie player Chris Goulding was pushed to the ground, quickly followed by other players knocking each other over and joining the violent fray. Ultimately, 13 players were ejected from the game, and [CNN reports](https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/02/sport/australia-philippines-basketball-brawl-video-spt/index.html) that the basketball governing body FIBA has opened disciplinary proceedings against both sides. > [](https://twitter.com/ESPNUK/status/1013793440700817415) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5328740/australia-basketball-philippines/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5328740/australia-basketball-philippines/"},"headline":"Basketball Game Devolves Into a Massive On-Court Brawl","datePublished":"2018-07-02T21:18:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:53:38.652Z","description":"\"This is not the spirit in which sport should be played\"","url":"https://time.com/5328740/australia-basketball-philippines/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Sports"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf1af045f5bffcb9/6989347986f68e31d86e98f8/australia-philippines-basketball.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf1af045f5bffcb9/6989347986f68e31d86e98f8/australia-philippines-basketball.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"BASKET-WC-PHI-AUS","caption":"BASKET-WC-PHI-AUS","creditText":"TED ALJIBE—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5328740/australia-basketball-philippines/","name":"Basketball Game Devolves Into a Massive On-Court Brawl"}}]}] ```