By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Partizan Belgrade didn’t permit players outside of Serbians Uros Trifunovic and Danilo Andjusic to compete with their national teams in the November games of the 2023 World Cup Qualifiers.
This means that Yam Madar and Ioannis Papapetrou had to skip games for Israel and Greece respectively because of this decision.
The Greek Federation reacted by filing a formal complaint, per national teams manager Dimos Dikoudis.
“We filed an official complaint to both the Serbian Basketball Federation and FIBA since this stance by the Serbian Federation is wrong,” Dikoudis said to NovaSports during the match of Greece vs. Latvia. “It’s illicit competition and we are obliged to protest.”
The answer came on twitter by Partizan president Ostoja Mijailovic who stated that the only reason Papapetrou and Madar were not released were the injuries of the rest of the roster.
Without them, Partizan wouldn’t be able to field the minimum roster for a EuroLeague game, having less than nine available players.
Samo povrede su nas sprečile da pustimo i reprezentativce drugih zemalja. U Pireju smo igrali sa minimalnim brojem igrača, a poraz će boleti manje ako 🇷🇸 ode na SP
— Ostoja Mijailovic (@Ostoja1945) November 11, 2022