Athinaikos: Complains to FIBA ​​against Besiktas for a provocative post

Days… of Eurobasket semi-final were revived in Greek-Turkish relations in the sport of basketball. Cause, a provocative post uploaded by Besiktas after defeating him Athenaikou on Thursday for the EuroCup (87-84) in Istanbul. The social media post depicted two Athenian players as waitresses to the players of the Turkish team.

The Greek team, through a statement, asked Besiktas to take down the publication, but did not receive a satisfactory answer. So Byron’s club announced that it will proceed to official complaint to FIBA.

Check out this Instagram post.

This post was shared by Besiktas Kad?n Basketbol (@bjkkadinbasketbol)

The announcement:

Immediately after the end of Qualco Athens’ match in Istanbul against Besiktas, a highly provocative social media post of the Turkish club’s official account depicted two of our players as waitresses for the Turkish team’s players. Without any desire to let the matter grow, but also with zero tolerance towards provocations and derogatory attitudes towards our female athletes, we contacted Besiktas and immediately requested that the post be taken down.

The first excuse given was that it was a response to a story of our team, with which on the day of the draw we were giving an appointment with Mariella Fasoula in three months, which as an excuse is at least funny and superficial. It was our pleasure to face the Greek center on the field, something that was made clear in all the reports that have been made on the match in the previous days. In the second communication the answer was that it is managed centrally and the publication cannot/will not be downloaded.

More than two hours after our communication, the publication is still on Besiktas’ social media and we are forced to publicly express our displeasure for a phenomenon, the repetition of which after every match between a Greek team and a Turkish team, whether at a collective or national level, ceases to look like a coincidence.

There will be an official complaint of the incident by our association to FIBA ​​and we will continue to advocate that sport should unite and that, especially in very difficult and dangerous times, we should all be careful not to cross the thin red line. We thank Besiktas for their otherwise excellent hospitality at all levels, and once again congratulate them on their victory.

PS We are not going to reproduce the highly offensive and derogatory post.