By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
FIBA decided to use the “nuclear solution” and banned the Slovenian and the Spanish men’s national team from Eurobasket 2017. A total of 14 teams is expected to be banned with only France from the moment staying out of this mess.
This is the saction that FIBA has decided to impose to every national federation which has a club playing in Eurocup. According to reports similar letters have been send to Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montengro and FYROM, the countries which have teams in the Adriatic League. It’s also reported that Spain has received such a letter and next in line should be Spain, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Lithuania, Italy, Poland, Israel and every other country with a team which has commited to play next season in Eurocup.
The national federations can “explain themselves” until the 20th of April, which probably means putting more pressure to the local clubs. It remains to be seen how this will end, since Serbia, Croatia, Italy, Greece, Serbia, Israel, Lithuania, Spain and Turkey have already qualified to the 2017 tournament and FIBA with this move its practically hurting its own tournament. The qualification games for the open spots start on the 31st of August. In theory Spain and Lithuania are also in danger of being banned from the upcoming Olympic Games and that may mean also bans for other teams from the pre-Olympic tournaments.
Full letter regarding the suspension of Slovenian Basketball Federation by FIBA: pic.twitter.com/l6qfdMtBnc
— Yugobasket (@yugobasket) April 15, 2016