Tag Archives | lebanese basketball federation

Lebanon withdraw from Jones Cup

national team

It really sucks to see Lebanese basketball suffering once more after the Lebanese Basketball Federation decided last week to cancel participating in 2014 Jones Cup in Taipei because they’re unable to cover the participation costs .

The Lebanese Basketball Federation confirmed Thursday that the men’s national team will not take part in the Jones Cup tournament which was due to take place Aug. 9-17.

The federation had initially requested a wildcard invitation to take part last month which was granted by the Taiwanese federation, before they decided to withdraw due to financial difficulties and absence of key players.

“The men’s national team is really in danger,” head coach Ghassan Sarkis said. “While our Asian counterparts are preparing seriously and playing right in China [ FIBA ASIA Cup], we are at home and can’t decide whether to take part or not.

“In addition, the financial aspect has been a huge barrier in front of us. As long as we are not solving it, there will be no national team and this is the federation’s duty to do it.”

“I want to thank the players for accepting to go even without pocket money, some of them even offered to pay for their flight ticket.” Source

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Will Julian Khazzouh play in the Lebanese basketball league?

There are some things in this country that are meant to never be understood. Things like whether sports players who have earlier played in the Israeli leagues are allowed to play in Lebanon or not.

The basketball player you see in the photo above is Julian Khazzouh, a Lebanese who was born in Australia where he played for the Sydney Kings in addition to some other Europan teams and Israel’s Ironi Ramat Gan. He also recently joined the Sagesse squad and is supposed to start playing for them starting the upcoming season.

Now you all know it was made clear last year that foreign players who previously received a work permit in Israel are not allowed to play for the Lebanese sports club.

However, Julian Khazzouh used his Australian passport to play for the Israel team, but started using the Lebanese ID he already has when he came here, and practically the law doesn’t apply to him anymore since it just mentions foreign players!

Moreover, it’s very clear for the Lebanese that traveling to Israel or dealing with Israelis is against the law, yet the Lebanese Basketball Federation is still to this moment going in discussions to decide whether Khazzouh will be given a permit to play or not! How on earth is this a hard case to solve?!

What’s even more shameful than Sagesse signing this guy is reading people like Elie Mechantaf defending him!

“We solved the issue with the Lebanese judiciary, as he [Khazzouh] played in Israel with his Australian passport,” Sagesse’s former captain and current president Elie Mchantaf said.

“[Khazzouh] has now regained Lebanese nationality and the law does not prevent him from playing here.

“We are working lawfully regarding this issue, and I assure everyone that he will be present in Sagesse’s first game of the season,” he added. Source

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