By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Arvydas Sabonis, president of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation, talked to journalists explaining the logic behind the recent decisions taken by the federation.
“Initially we thought that FIBA is talking nonsense. But afterwards it all made sense”, said Sabonis “You can all understand what is FIBA? Lithuania belongs there”, he continued. “We are its members. Other organizations do not have laws, rules. They don’t make them. If you have an alternative, you can prompt it. The International Olympic Commitee recognizes FIBA. We are its members. We have an impressive four-year Olympic cycle. Time will tell how things will be resolved. For our part, we have done everything to maximize our protection of the national team”.
Like Andrei Kirilenko, who is currently the president of the Russian federation, Sabonis wants to see the national team playing in the Olympics and the Eurobasket: “I wanted the whole thing to be more democratic, as it should be, and the decision to be taken at a conference, in which all the Lithuanian basketball community would decide what to do. Unfortunately, FIBA could not wait. We had to take such action. It was not an easy decision. We got to a point where the issue of the Olympic Games was at stake. I do not know what else we could do”.
It remains to be seen what will be the verdict of FIBA on the matter, in the weekend meeting in Munich. As Sabas joked at the end of the press conference: “There is no need to go deeper. Time solves everything. “