Paris Basketball players targeted by racist chants in Badalona / News - Basketnews.com

Paris Basketball players were racially targeted by racist behavior in the French team's EuroCup victory against Joventut Badalona in Spain.

Credit: dpa/picture-alliance - Scanpix Credit dpa/picture-alliance - Scanpix

Paris Basketball players were targeted by racial slurs in their team's EuroCup overtime victory against host Joventut Badalona on Tuesday night.

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80%14,1Points made:14,1Accuracy:79,8%Place in standings:12Record max:17Record min:6Most made FTs:TJ ShortsTeamEuroCupStatisticsSchedule

After a hard-fought 101-94 win, players of the French team looked visibly disturbed after they heard chants of "Monkey!" from fans in Badalona.

Paris players -- Michael Kessens and Bandja Sy -- issued complaints to the referees about the slurs leveled at them by host fans.

Kessens and Nadir Hifi, another Paris Basketball player, took to Twitter to condemn the racist behavior. Kessens called upon EuroCup to punish Badalona, stating that this was not the first time that such an incident had occurred in this same court.

Kessens was referring to an incident involving then-ratiopharm Ulm player Yago dos Santos, who was similarly subjected to racist chants in the EuroCup last year.

Following recent events in Badalona, the EuroLeague organization issued the following statement:

"Euroleague Basketball has always had a zero-tolerance policy against any acts of racism or of discrimination. The public claim of Paris Basketball's player Nadir Hifi, made on his personal X social media account, has already been reported, and the matter is being investigated by the relevant bodies.

Should the available game footage contain the reported facts and the individual/s be identified, Euroleague Basketball will take every necessary action to prevent this from happening again.

The league will also request all clubs to intensify the monitoring and education efforts at their events so any such despicable behaviors are identified and prevent them from happening in Euroleague Basketball arenas.

Euroleague Basketball and all of its clubs welcome and celebrate diversity in all of its expressions, and believes in basketball as a tool to unite and instill positive values in people."

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