FIBA farce! Under-18 teams REFUSE to play, hold five-minute pitch protest over ‘safety concerns over dangerously hot gym’ in Serbia
- The players from Turkey and Poland intentionally turned the ball over and ran the clock
- The following game in the elementary school gym saw multiple slips
- DailyMail.com provides the latest international sports news
Both the Polish and Turkish under-18 basketball teams took the extraordinary step of stopping their play at the FIBA Euro championship in Serbia.
Players from both nations suffered injuries in the final minutes on Saturday and expected play to be called off amid a “dangerous environment” caused by “little or no air conditioning” in the “already sweltering” primary school gymnasium. ESPN.
When the game didn’t quit, players took matters into their own hands; eliminating the competition from the remaining five minutes, according to the outlet.
The ball tossed the ball to each other and walked down the court in an extraordinary sight shared on Twitter by hoops of saint joseph.
This continued until shot clock violations or “intentional turnovers” occurred at both ends of the court.
Poland vs Türkiye. Poland has an injury (heat), the coach wants to lose the remaining 5 minutes. FIBA wouldn’t let them… so we have this for 5 minutes. It’s over 90 degrees inside! pic.twitter.com/wlajCqFUI3
— San Jose Hoops (@SJ_Hoops) July 22, 2023
The players from Turkey and Poland took matters into their own hands after their European Under-18 Championship group match was not abandoned due to “dangerous conditions” on Saturday.
Multiple intentional turnovers and shot clock violations were committed in the final minutes.
In the following game, the Swedish and French players slipped on the same court in Serbia.
After the match between Turkey and Poland, which caused some injuries due to the terrible conditions of the arena, the game of France and Sweden continues in the same place as if there was nothing wrong. incredible pic.twitter.com/5EZId9zacc
— Doruk Karaca (@Dorukaraca) July 22, 2023
FIBA has since issued a statement suggesting that the primary gymnasium will be used in future games.
In addition, players from Sweden and France played on the same pitch, succeeding the Poles and Turks. The latter won 78-63.
Vision uploaded to Twitter showed repeated footage of players slipping and falling in a variety of situations.
FIBA issued a statement to ESPN after the embarrassing protest, admitting fault.
“The game officials should have stopped the game between Poland and Turkey due to the adverse conditions inside that gym,” FIBA wrote in an emailed statement to the outlet.
“Our Competitions department will investigate this matter to understand why it was not done.”
A move away from more games at the Mika Antic gym seems unlikely given his other comments.
‘An extreme storm [which] affected the area. It was so strong that water came in from the roof of the Cair venue, and games had to be stopped for a period of time to clean the floors,’ via ESPN.
All teams were consulted and agreed to continue with the game program. The local organizers proceeded to carefully clean all the areas and all necessary measures were taken to avoid any future problems.
