BEIJING, Dec 5: Star Chinese point guard Liu Wei was suspended for 10 games and fined 50,000 yuan ($7,300) for organising an attack on an American player after a club game, China’s domestic league said on Friday.

Local media reports described the punishment of Liu — a starter on China’s national team at both the Athens and Beijing Olympics — as the largest-ever penalty meted out by the China Basketball Association (CBA).

Liu, who plays for the Shanghai Sharks, was suspended and fined for orchestrating the Nov 28 attack on Gabriel Muoneke after the Sharks lost to Yunnan Honghe 107-97, the league said on its website. Several of Liu’s team-mates surrounded and threatened Muoneke – who scored 38 points for Yunnan – in a stadium hallway after the game, the CBA said.

One of Liu’s team-mates struck the US player with a plastic water bottle, it said, adding that the team-mate had been given the same punishment.

Muoneke, who was accompanying his three children and wife out of the stadium at the time of the incident, was not hurt, it said.—AFP