One of the original leaders of the Wollongong Hawks believes the NBL foundation club has been coldly snubbed by the people making the rules for the 2009-10 competition.Peter Brettell was the Hawks' first president and held the position for 18 years.His father Roy was a long-time administrator with Illawarra basketball, while his sons Chris and Jason both played for the Hawks.Still a keen basketball follower, Brettell claimed the league's criteria for next season - clubs are required to have $1 million in the bank and another $500,000 in capital - had effectively destroyed the Hawks."I'm at a loss to understand what they're doing and, quite frankly, I don't know where the league think they're heading. The whole thing's a bloody joke and a recipe for disaster," Brettell said."I don't doubt for one minute they're trying to squeeze clubs out, and that's a disgrace for basketball given that the Hawks are the only foundation club still around. They've been there since day one."You can't argue that basketball needs change, but it just seems as though they're pushing clubs out without giving it enough thought and they're going to stuff up a bloody good sport. They've lost the plot at the top-level and it just leaves me shaking my head."The best thing would be to have a 12-month break with no league at all and let everybody sit down together and have a sensible, rational discussion about the whole thing. They need time to talk it through so they can establish what's best for basketball and how it's going to go forward."Brettell was around in the days when the Hawks were run on a shoestring budget, usually on a year to year basis.He believes the league has got it wrong by setting high entry costs for clubs and would prefer to see the competition expanded rather than pruned to eight teams."If you run it at a reduced cost you give more teams and more people opportunities to be involved, because the way they've set this magic criteria, I'm not sure how many teams will be in a position to meet it," he said."The league should go back to where it used to be 24 teams or at least 16 teams and it's split into divisions. Teams could then cross over from their divisions and meet in the quarters and semis."Brettell empathised with the Hawks' ownership group and sponsors, claiming "they have done what they can" to keep the Hawks alive."I admire what the local people have tried to do and understand how tough it is financially," he said."You go right back to the early days in 1979 and so many different people have put so much of their time, effort and money in to keep the club going. It was only 12 months ago that the whole city got behind the Hawks to keep them going when the future looked quite bleak, and that was a very moving and emotional time for all those people involved in that fight for survival."It's been a life journey for so many people, but with the way it's playing out at the moment, you can't help but have a sense that it seems like it's been all for nothing."It feels like the end of an era and I know I speak for a lot of people when I say it's very sad the Hawks are gone."