The mysterious case of Sonny Weems’ ban

2018-02-25T13:37:02+00:00 2018-02-25T14:36:45+00:00.

Aris Barkas

25/Feb/18 13:37

Eurohoops.net

While Sonny Weems is expected in Istanbul in order to join Anadolu Efes, his peculiar doping case and the ban imposed to him by Israeli authorities remains a mystery.

By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net

Back in September, a ban until 2021 was announced for Weems by NADO, the Israeli anti-doping authority. According to NADO, Weems refused to take a test, however, according to Weems, the Israeli authority didn’t accept his sample.

The point is that the ban was never imposed, Weems player in the Chinese CBA and speaking to Walla and Arale Weisberg, professor Shaul Schreiber admitted that NODA will take action: “This is very frustrating for us. Weems keeps playing, while FIBA and WADA are turning a blind eye. This is an act of softness, which puts a bad example to the war against doping. We can enforce our punishments only in Israel, but these problems occur only in Basketball. Our legal counsel is in touch with FIBA and WADA, and we are planning to turn to EuroLeague about Weems. We had endless correspondence, and we got delusional answers. We managed to set discussions with a German attorney of FIBA, but then he didn’t answer the phone and made some weird evasions”.

According to Schreiber, there’s a hole in the system. “Why is it happening? I can only assume but I don’t really know. I don’t know much about the inside politics. When it all started, it was a big shock for me. But it’s been a year, so now I’m less surprised and more frustrated. I want to remind you that WADA didn’t act on the Russian athletes’ saga until it was blasted by the world media, with research in Germany and Great Britain. We don’t have the ability to quite Wada. If we do, Israel might be eliminated from Olympic games”.

Two other players, Yenci Gates and Hamady N’Diaye, were banned by the same organization and they are currently competing without any problem in Italy and France.

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