6 Foreign Refs for CBA Semis & Finals

Beijing, May 15 — The Chinese Basketball Association announced it will invite six international referees to officiate the 2025-2026 CBA League semifinals and finals.

According to theCBA statement: "All six invited referees are FIBA elite referees with extensive international experience. The semifinal referees are Serbia’s Petar Pesic, Latvia’s Gatis Salins, Thailand’s Nattapong Jontapa, and South Korea’s Park Kyoungjin."

"Petar Pesic has officiated the Men’s Basketball European Cup and Women’s Basketball World Cup qualifiers. Gatis Salins has refereed the Men’s and Women’s Basketball World Cup finals and Olympic semifinals. Park Kyoungjin has worked Men’s Basketball World Cup and Women’s World Cup qualifiers, and has officiated CBA semifinals and finals for two consecutive seasons. Nattapong Jontapa has refereed Men’s Basketball World Cup qualifiers and multiple Asian events, and this season officiated the WCBA semifinals and NBL semifinals in China."

Meanwhile, Chinese referees are also going abroad. FIBA will send several Chinese referees to overseas assignments: Zhang Xiao will officiate the East Asia Six-Team Tournament of the Asian Champions League in Malaysia in late May. Jiang Wen’an will referee the Indonesian League playoffs in Indonesia in late May. Wang Wansong will officiate the FIBA U18 Men’s Asian Cup South Asia Qualifiers in Sri Lanka in late May. Li Jin will referee the FIBA U18 Men’s Asian Cup Southeast Asia Qualifiers in Thailand in early June.