Hapoel Jerusalem bash BCL and FIBA on lack of support for Israel / News - Basketnews.com

Hapoel Jerusalem released a statement where they called FIBA out on their lack of public support for Israel and expressed their disappointment in the organization.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

With a war situation underway in Israel, basketball games of the country's teams are being canceled in all European competitions. Despite this fact, one of the clubs released an open letter bashing one of the organizations.

On Tuesday, FIBA announced that all games of both Hapoel Holon and Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem were postponed. Hapoel Jerusalem, however, took notice of the lack of directness in the message.

While the EuroLeague has announced that all games in their competitions will feature a minute of silence this week in honor of the victims in Israel, the BCL has not publicly addressed the situation and called it a security situation instead.

Multiple teams of various sports released messages of support. At the same time, both FIBA and the BCL did not address it in any way before the announcement of the postponement of the games. The Israeli club released a statement, calling the organization to express support for Israel instead of trying to go around it.

Hapoel Jerusalem's statement:

The Basketball Champions League has announced the postponement of games of participating Israeli clubs. While we appreciate the BCL moving the dates of our games, we wish to express our profound disappointment with the lack of sensitivity, empathy, and solidarity in the BCL's announcement.

We, the citizens of Israel, including Jerusalem's fans, players, and staff, are currently facing a state of war in our country, a war that was imposed on us.

We expect the BCL and its parent entity, FIBA, to publicly stand by Israel in this difficult time of war.

For the people of Israel, professional sports is the least important thing right now, and we expect more from the sports organizations which we and other Israeli clubs associate ourselves with.

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