The country’s top women’s basketball league was dealt a big blow Friday after the Shinsegae Cool Cat made a surprise announcement that the team is disbanding.

The decision was made without any prior notice to its players and coaching staff as they were on a break after the end of the season earlier this month.

The league’s governing body also said it was not even aware of the situation before the team made the announcement on Friday.

“For the past 15 years, we worked hard for the development of women’s basketball in Korea. But we’ve reached our limit, and are no longer able to run the team,” Shinsegae said in a statement.

Founded in 1998 in the Women’s Korean Basketball League, the Shinsegae Cool Cat had a successful stint until 2003 ― it won the season title in 2000 and finished runner-up in 2003. But since then team has been struggling at the bottom of the league table. This season the Cool Cat finished 5th in the 6-team league with a 16-24 record.

The WKBL league currently consists of six teams, including the Shinsegae Cool Cat, Shinhan Bank S-Birds, Samsung Life Bichumi, Woori Bank Hansae, KB Stars and KDB Life Insurance Winnus. All the teams, except the Cool Cat, are owned by major financial companies in the country.

It was an extra challenge for the Cool Cat as they often had the disadvantage of being the only “non-financial team,” Friday’s statement said. But the Cool Cat did not mention how they were unfairly treated by other teams.

The team’s owner Shinsegae Group, one of the country’s largest department store chains, says it will now look for a company to take over the team. But because of the short notice, it would be difficult to find a new owner before the next season.

With the disbanding of the Cool Cat, 16 players, several of whom play on the national team, are now teamless. Meanwhile, the WKBL announced that it will hold a board meeting this week to discuss the situation.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)