By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
With a letter signed by club president Andrey Vatutin, CSKA Moscow tries to clarify the now infamous “shot-clock incident” in yesterday’s game against Zalgiris Kaunas.
“On Wednesday, one of the best Euroleague matches of this season took place in Moscow, CSKA versus Zalgiris. Unfortunately, in one of the attacks of the guests at the end of the fourth quarter, an error occurred by the operator of the 24 seconds shot clock and the time of possession of the Lithuanian team was reduced by four seconds.
On behalf of CSKA Moscow, I declare that there was no intention in the actions of the referee table and the technical staff of the arena. We acknowledge our responsibility for the work of the arena equipment and the referee table, however, the control over the time of the game, in accordance with the Euroleague regulations and FIBA official rules, is exercised by the referees in the field. As the game progressed, the incident was not promptly noticed by any of the participants in the match – neither by us, nor by the Zalgiris coaching staff, or the referees. In addition, a protest following the match was not filed by Zalgiris. The equipment diagnostics, which took place after the game, did not produce any errors and the operator of the shot clock denies any actions of its own at the time of the incident.
We sincerely regret that an unintentional mistake has cast doubt on the result of the tremendous work of the players and coaches and also on the sincere emotions of the fans of both teams.
All the necessary materials will be transferred by us to the Euroleague, which, undoubtedly, will take an objective decision on the results of the investigation. We are sure that we won in a fair fight and mistakes are part of any game, as long as they are not intentional. We hope our partnership with Zalgiris will be preserved.
President of PBC CSKA
Andrey Vatutin”