Why did Georgian players attack 76ers’ Turkish star Furkan Korkmaz after their Eurobasket victory?
There was no end to the drama in Turkey’s Eurobasket 2022 showdown with Georgia which has resulted in a serious fallout.
On Sunday night EuroBasket 2022 provided fans with exactly the kind of scenes you don’t want to see in the game today. What happens now is anybody’s guess.
Turkey’s Furkan Korkmaz attacked by Georgian players
According to accounts from Turkish officials, Philadelphia 76ers’ Turkish international Furkan Kormaz was attacked by Georgian players near the locker room, following his side’s double-overtime loss on Sunday. Following his own ejection from the game, officials allege that Korkmaz was physically attacked by several members of the Georgian team. To that end, the Turkish federation is actually threatening to drop out of the tournament if security camera footage of the incident is not released.
With regards to what exactly happened, it was the middle of the fourth quarter when Korkmaz appeared to have an altercation with Georgia’s Duda Sanadze. The pair appeared to butt heads and then entered into a verbal exchange, before being separated by teammates and officials alike. Needless to say, both players were immediately ejected, however, scenes got uglier when fans began to throw cups onto the court. To make matters worse, Turkish officials also allege that aside from the attack on Korkmaz, Georgian police - the game was played in Tbilisi - exacted a violent vendetta as well. Incidentally, Korkmaz himself gave his own account of what happened and it only served to paint a less than positive picture.
What did the Turkish federation say about the Georgian attack?
Speaking on the incident, vice president of the Turkish Federation, Omer Onan made it very clear where he and the organization stood:
“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 the ejected player (Duda Sanadze) and the police. 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.”
“Wherever you look it, there is nothing to hold onto. The non-competing player, Shengelia, and three people sitting on the bench went to the locker room. At the end of the match, the police were in front of our locker room. Supposedly they were protecting us but they pushed us all the time. We were going to hit each other with our fists.”
Turkey’s coach Hakan Demir also has his say
Given the serious nature of the allegations, it wasn’t long before Turkey’s assistant coach weighed in on the contentious situation. Incidentally, it was Demir who spoke with the media and not head coach Ergin Ataman due to the latter’s ejection from the game. “Today, the Georgian players and some security guards in the hallway disrespected us. We came here to play basketball, not for anything else. So everything should stay on the court, but unfortunately, a big scandal took place off the court. Such things do not suit the spirit of sports. A basketball game was supposed to be played today, but unfortunately what happened went beyond basketball. We have two more games left in Georgia and, unfortunately, what happened in the corridors today was against the spirit of the sport. We expected a more gentlemanly treatment, but unfortunately, it did not happen.”
“There was a basketball game with two overtimes on the court. Sometimes we played well and sometimes Georgia played well, but after our player, Furkan Korkmaz, was disqualified, three opposing team players attacked him in the corridors, while security guards attacked our player and our trainer. We came here to play basketball, not box. Therefore, we are very disturbed by the security weakness experienced today. We will follow up on this issue as well.”
Fuel for the Fire: Was Turkey robbed of 22 seconds?
Aside from the alleged violence that ensued, the Turkish federation has also filed an official complaint of the game itself, on the grounds that 22 seconds supposedly disappeared from the clock during the fight which broke out between Korkmaz and Sanadze. It should be mentioned, that Sandro Mamukelashvili was responsible for the game-tying layup with two seconds to go, which in turn resulted in overtime. If that’s actually the case, one could easily argue that things would have been very different if not for the loss of time.