FEB President Garbajosa and La Liga football boss warn: "Spanish basketball under threat"

MADRID (FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers) - Jorge Garbajosa, the President of the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB), on Tuesday backed the warning issued by Javier Tebas, the President of Spain's top flight football league La Liga, that Spanish basketball is under threat.

With 10 days to go to the start of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers, FEB is still unclear as to the availability of the 24 players it has shortlisted for the national team's games away to Montenegro on November 24 and at home against European champions Slovenia on November 26.

Javier Tebas, President of Spain's La Liga

Speaking during Tuesday's Sports Breakfast with Europa Press, Tebas said: "I've been paying a lot of attention to what is happening (in basketball) because it is a consequence of the neglect at the time of Euroleague's creation. If what is currently happening is permitted, they will run over the national team and run over the ACB, which is already in a complicated situation. If it is not stopped, they will run over Spain basketball, for sure.

"If FIBA is not successful in this, Spanish basketball is in the position of disappearing as an industry. We need to protect national industries and have Spanish players comply with law."

Garbajosa seconded Tebas' comments, saying: "I am in totally in agreement with him. We must respect the leagues and the national teams because they are the basis of the sports structure.

"The issue with the basketball windows has become one for the country as a whole. It is a national emergency. We cannot allow a Spanish national team to be out of national team competitions until 2021. If we are eliminated (from the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers) with our best players, then it is a responsibility of the president of the national federation and the head coach. But we need the assets to be able to compete at the highest level."

Garbajosa stressed that he is "still looking for solutions and initiatives to avoid this being a catastrophic blow for Spanish sports."

"We will try everything until the last minute. There will be people that will work as much as we will, but I cannot imagine those people working more. This a national problem, we cannot allow that a leading national team in the world is not at the FIBA Basketball World Cup or the Olympic Games," he warned.

FIBA