The Turkish basketball federation said player Furkan Korkmaz was attacked by members of the Georgian national team and national police after he was ejected from a game during the EuroBasket 2022 tournament.
The Turkish federation is calling for a review and is threatening to pull out of the tournament if it does not receive security footage of the alleged incident.
The game took place Sunday at the Tbilisi Arena in Tbilisi, Georgia. Before the alleged altercation, Korkmaz, who is also a guard for the Philadelphia 76ers, drew two technical fouls and was ejected from the game after he got in the face of Georgian player Duda Sanadze.
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According to Eurohoops.netthe media partner of EuroLeague Basketball, Turkish federation vice-president and former player of the team Omer Onan issued a statement describing the nature of the attack and claimed that Georgian national police got involved.
“While Furkan Korkmaz was walking in the hallway to the locker rooms with our trainer, Georgia’s players who were not in the active roster attacked him together with (Sanadze) and the police,” Onan said in the statement, per Eurohoops.net.
“There should not be an attack on the player that goes to the locker room. At the end of the match, 30 policemen each pushed us into a fight. We got into a fight with Georgia’s official police. I am calling out to FIBA and I have also told FIBA’s officials. Let no one deceive themselves or think that we are stupid. They will bring us all the camera footage from that corridor minute by minute without anything missing. If those cameras do not come to us, we will leave this tournament.”
Turkey assistant coach Hakan Demir spoke after the game and reiterated the comments made by Onan about the alleged attack on Korkmaz.
“We came here to play basketball, not box,” Demir said, according to Eurohoops.net. “Therefore, we are very disturbed by the security weakness experienced today.”
In the game, Georgia defeated Turkey, 88-83, in double overtime. According to Eurohoops.net, Turkey also protested the outcome after Demir claimed that 22 seconds were taken off the clock. Demir said after the game that it wasn’t just a couple of seconds which “makes us think that the situation is not just an error,” according to Eurohoops.net, which also reported that Demir was the one speaking at the press conference because Turkey coach Ergin Ataman was ejected at the end of the second overtime.
“We came to Georgia expecting to be in a sister country,” Demir said. “Yes, there was tension between the players on the court today, but it is not possible for us to accept what happened afterward. Players can have tension with each other on the court, but they are friends off the court. It is very sad that the security guards are also involved in the incident today. Of course, Georgia won the match, I congratulate them too, but that’s not the point. What really matters is what happens in the corridors.”
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism