By John Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
The Besiktas Sompo Sigorta board member Umut Senol responsible for the basketball division touched on recent developments surrounding Shaquielle McKissic and Olympiacos finalizing a deal with the player. On the Turkish team’s YouTube channel confirmed paying issues but underlined that the 29-year-old swingman remains part of the squad.
“Shaquielle McKissic is our player,” he stressed, “We had a crisis with him last week. We made an effort to pay the team before Galatasaray match. We paid half salary to all our players. We could pay other players less and give McKissic a full salary. We said we would pay the remaining money on Monday and we paid.”
“Many teams in Turkey, is paying the salary of a few months late to the players,” he pointed out afterwards, “It is not in our values that our player leaves his teammates and coach alone when he is half a month behind. In some sports, professionalism is at the forefront, it is done for money. I do not find it right what our player did for the two-day delay. His first priority is that he gets his money, and I respect him. McKissic is now our player. We have not made a decision as to whether to continue. We will sit down and talk about this situation not only with me, but with our coach and our GM.”
“There is a big decline in revenues in the Turkish basketball league,” he added refering to the current BSL situation, “Our eternal rival (Fenerbahce Beko) paid more attention to this sport than we did. Another competitor of ours, whose chairman was our congressman (Anadolu Efes), gave great importance to this sport. So it would be unrealistic to say that we will play the championship in the short term in basketball. Our target for this year is to close this season without any dept. We will be happy if we make semi-finals and finals while making this goal. We want to pay our players their money timely.”