By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
While Kosovo still is is a disputed territory and partially recognised state, the basketball team of the country is making today its debut in the Eurobasket 2017 qualifiers.
Erolld Belegu, president of Kosovar basketball federation, spoke to Arale Weisberg and Yehonatan Eliahu of Israel’s Walla!Sports about this peculiar situation and the challenges of the national team of his country: “We’ve faced many obstacles down the road. FIBA treats us as a regular country, while they should treat us as a new country – an ex-Yugoslav country. At the beginning, they refused to allow three players to play with us, since they played in the past for other countries: Dardan Berisha of Turkey, Edmond Azemi of Albania and Yll Kacaniku of turkey. But they had to play for these countries since there was no Kosovo at the time! Eventually they approved their participation, but forced us to pay a 4.000 euros fine for changing their passport. We don’t have much money, so it wasn’t easy, but the alternative – giving up these players – was much worse for us”.
Kosovo also planned to play with two Slovenian players who were born in Kosovo – Gezim Morina and Erjon Kastrati – but they won’t be in the team. Why? “Everything was settled with the Slovenian federation, but as soon as we found out that we are going to play in the same qualifying group, they told us to forget about it”.
Kenan Sipahi was also born in Kosovo, but at this point this doesn’t mean much: “He got a Turkish passport when he was a teenager, and he also played with Turkey’s national team this summer. He decided to stay with them”.
The fact that many countries have not recognized Kosovo is an other issue: “It’s not a secret that Ukraine is among the countries who don’t recognize the independence of Kosovo. As they couldn’t assure of safety in Kiyv, because of the complex situation they are in right now, FIBA offered Vilnius in Lithuania as the city to host the game between us. There are also other countries who don’t recognize us and we don’t have any problem playing there, like we did in the past in Cyprus. So, if we advance to the Eurobasket, we will be able to play in Israel or Romania”.
However, the star of the team is going to be an American, the naturalized forward Justin Doellman: “We got him like a gift from God. Justin was looking for a national team in Europe to play for, we sat down with him and sorted everything out. Even when the ACB made it clear that he won’t be recognized as a European player, because Spain doesn’t recognize Kosovo, he decided to stay with us. He is like a father to our players. They look up to him, they worship him. He is our leader”.