By: EFE
By: EFE
Several Belgian basketball federations requested this Tuesday an investigation into the unit of sports fraud of the Belgian federal police to determine if the 3 × 3 basketball team of this country registered non-existent tournaments to access the qualification prior to the Olympic Games in Tokyo East summer.
In addition, the Flemish Federation -where the players involved come from- has also opened a disciplinary investigation internally.
The team , which achieved the fourth position in Tokyo, would have registered its participation in up to 27 fictional tournaments between August and October 2019 to achieve the Points required in the ranking of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) that would allow them to access the qualifying matches to reach the Olympic event.
Various Belgian national and regional basketball federations have compiled The information they have available and have been transferred to the Federal Police, since they want this matter to be investigated in depth by the sports fraud unit, the Belgian Basketball Federation pointed out in a statement.
At the moment, the available information is not sufficient to suspend the players who represented Belgium at the Olympic Games , who will compete this weekend in the European 3 × 3 basketball championship in Paris without changes in their line-up, reported the Federation.
According to the Flemish daily De Staandard, the Belgian federations had initially attributed the responsibility of investigating the case to FIBA and had not reviewed the case due to lack of evidence , despite being aware of the suspicions about the team since June 2021.