By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos‘ latest additions Mike James and KC Rivers are part of a fake passports scandal as Eldiario.es first reported.
Laboral’s James and Iverson and Real’s KC Rivers all owned a passport from the African country Guinea-Bissau and were able to participate in the ACB league last season.
Guinea-Bissau is one of the 78 African countries that has signed the Cotonou agreement, a treaty between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. In some European leagues, players from countries of the Cotonou agreement are not counted as foreigners. So, it is obvious why all these American players owned a passport from there.
Who set things up? According to the Spanish website, Josean Querejeta asked for Aldo Dario Herchhoren’s help (Guinea’s consul in Spain). Hercchoren has been sentenced for forgery in 1995. Last summer he was arrested and so when Querejeta went on to renew Mike James’ passport, he was informed that it could not be done.
James stated that he agreed with the basketball association of Guinea to play for the national team in case it would advance to the Olympics in order to get his new passport. However, the country does not have a basketball association!
So, he was forced to play with an American passport and with that he arrived to Panathinaikos. As Mundo Deportivo reports, James’ Guinean passport was indeed fake.