The 12th West Asian Clubs Championship kicks off here on Friday with the region's top 10 teams joining fierce competition, local daily The Jordan Times reported on Friday.

The tournament, organized by the West Asian Basketball Association (WABA), stipulates that the top three teams, provided they represent different countries, qualify to the Asian Basketball Confederation's (ABC) 20th Champions Cup (Asian Clubs Championship) slated for May in Indonesia.

At least five teams, including Iran's Saba Battery and Lebanon's Riyadi, are eyeing the title.

Jordan's reigning league champions Zain and runner-up Orthodoxi will represent the kingdom at the Championship.

Meanwhile, a two-day International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Commissioners Clinic will also be held alongside the event starting Saturday.

League Commissioner Mudar Majdoub, who was the first in Jordan to attain FIBA Commissioner's licence in 1999 when the clinic was held in Asia for the first time, said 13 participants from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Iran and referees Tayseer Sa'adeh and Mohammad Tarifi from Jordan will attend the clinic which serves both as a refresher course for commissioners as well as to license new commissioners.

The clinic will be the second one for the WABA zone after the first was held in Beirut in 2007.

(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2009)