Furkan Korkmaz ejected, attacked by opponents during EuroBasket loss to Georgia, according to Turkish officials

EuroBasket 2022 took a bizarre turn on Sunday during Georgia’s double win over Turkey. According to Turkish officials, Furkan Korkmaz was attacked near the locker room by Georgian players after he was kicked out, and the federation is threatening to leave the tournament if they do not receive security footage of the incident.

Halfway through the fourth quarter, Korkmaz came into action with Duda Sanadze from Georgia. The two players bumped and exchanged words before being separated by other players and officials. Both players were immediately ejected from the game as fans began tossing cups onto the field.

That should have been the end of the trouble, but the trouble stayed off the field. In addition to the alleged attack on Korkmaz, Turkish officials claim that dozens of Georgian police – the match was played in Tbilisi – continued the violence after the game.

Here are the full comments from the Vice President of the Turkish Federation Omer Onan:

“While Furkan Korkmaz was walking down the corridor to the changing rooms with our trainer, Georgian players who were not on the active roster attacked him along with the ejected player (Duda Sanadze) and the police. There should be no attack on the player. goes to the locker room. At the end of the game, 30 police officers each pushed us into a fight. We got into a fight with the official Georgia police. I call the FIBA ​​and I also told the FIBA ​​officials. Late no one kidding themselves or thinking we’re stupid. They’ll bring us all the CCTV footage of that gang minute by minute without anything missing. If those cameras don’t come to us, we’ll leave this tournament.”

“Wherever you look, there is nothing to hold on to. The non-competitive player, Shengelia, and three people sitting on the bench went to the locker room. At the end of the match, the police were in front of our locker room Supposedly they were protecting us, but they were pushing us all the time. We’d punch each other with our fists.”

And from Turkish assistant coach Hakan Demir, who spoke to the media because head coach Ergin Ataman was also ejected from the game:

“Today the Georgian players and some guards in the hallway did not respect us. We came here to play basketball, not for anything else. So everything has to stay on the field, but unfortunately there was a big scandal off the field. Such things do not fit into the spirit of sports There was supposed to be a basketball game today but unfortunately what happened went beyond basketball We have two games to go in Georgia and unfortunately what happened in the corridors today was contrary to the spirit of the sport. We expected a more friendly treatment, but unfortunately that did not happen.”

“There was a basketball game with two overtime on the court. Sometimes we played well and sometimes Georgia played well, but after our player, Furkan Korkmaz, was disqualified, three opponents attacked him in the hallways, while guards attacked our player and our coach. “We came here to play basketball, not box. Therefore, we are very concerned about the security weakness we are experiencing today. We will also follow up on this issue.”

In addition, Turkey has filed an official protest against the game, claiming that 22 seconds mysteriously went off the clock during the Korkmaz-Sanadze incident. Until then, it’s worth noting that Sandro Mamukelashvili scored an equalizer with two seconds left to send the game into extra time.