Rwandan international basketball referee Jean Sauveur Ruhamiriza has been named to officiate the Nile Conference regular season of the Basketball Africa League 2023, which tips off in Cairo, Egypt on Wednesday.

The 32 year-old who departed for Cairo on Saturday night, is one of 15 referees selected to officiate at the African club basketball showpiece.

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It will be his third time officiating the BAL having done so during the tournament’s inaugural season in 2021 in Kigali.

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Just like the previous edition, the 2023 BAL campaign started with the Sahara Conference in the Senegalese capital of Dakar in March and will conclude in Kigali, Rwanda, in May.

The Nile Conference brings together six teams namely Egypt’s Al Ahly, Cape Town Tigers (South Africa), BAL 2022 runners-up Petro de Luanda (Angola), City Oilers (Uganda), Ferroviário da Beira (Mozambique) and SLAC (Guinea).

The teams will play a 15-game group phase at the Hassan Mostafa Indoor Sports Complex in Cairo from April 26 - May 6.

The top four teams from each conference will advance to an eight-game, single elimination playoffs and finals at BK Arena from May 20-27.

In March, another Rwandan referee Didier Gaga was handling matches at Dakar in Sahara conference regular season.

Four teams namely Rwanda Energy Group (REG), Abidjan Basket Club (Côte d'Ivoire) AS Douanes (Senegal) and Stade Malien (Mali) qualified for the playoffs through the Sahara Conference.