Philadelphia 76ers guardian Furkan Korkmaza Turkish national, was allegedly assaulted by Georgian police after being ejected from a EuroBasket match Sunday in Tbilisi.
Turkish officials say dozens of Georgian police attacked team members, including Korkmaz, in the hallway near the changing rooms.
Turkey’s men’s national basketball team is threatening to quit the tournament if they don’t get security footage of the incident.
In the middle of the fourth quarter, Korkmaz had to be separated from Georgia Duda Sanadze after bumping heads and exchanging a few words as fans threw cups onto the pitch.
Both players were sent off but violence continued in the hallway due to inactive Georgian players and local police attacking visitors.
Statement by Turkish Federation Vice-President Omer Onan
“As Furkan Korkmaz was walking down the locker room hallway with our coach, Georgia players who weren’t on the active roster attacked him with the expelled player. [Duda Sanadze] and the police,” Onan said. “There shouldn’t be an attack on the player who goes to the locker room. At the end of the match, 30 policemen pushed us each into a fight. We had a fight with the official Georgia police.
“I call on FIBA and I also spoke to FIBA officials about it. Don’t let anyone be wrong or think we’re stupid. They will bring us all the camera footage of this hallway minute by minute without missing a thing. If those cameras don’t come to us, we will leave this tournament.”
Besides the fight, Turkey submitted an official protest of the game, saying that 22 seconds have passed since the clock during the incident despite being a dead ball.
georgia Sandro Mamukelashvili scored an tying basket with two seconds left to force overtime. Turkey lost 83-88 in double OT.
