FIBA investigates scuffle between Mali gamers

FIBA has opened an investigation into an embarrassing struggle between two Mali gamers following their loss to Serbia on the FIBA Ladies’s World Cup on Monday.

Malian gamers Salimatou Kourouma and Kamite Elisabeth Dabou had been caught on digicam wrestling and throwing wild punches at one another on the sting of the media zone on the Sydney Olympic Park Sports activities Centre after their facet fell to its fourth-consecutive loss.

The media zone is a walk-through space subsequent to the court docket the place gamers cease for post-game interviews on the way in which to the locker room and has brilliant TV lights and a World Cup sponsor board.

A Serbian journalist was interviewing Serbia’s Sasa Cado when the noise from the scuffle made the participant leap again, with the digicam panning to seize a number of wild punches being thrown as teammates tried to separate the gamers.

Mali was solely invited to the World Cup after Nigeria self-suspended itself from worldwide play after a collection of feuds with FIBA over the nationwide authorities’s affect over their basketball federation.

Nigeria had already comfortably certified and would have posed stiff competitors because it has a number of gamers who play in high leagues or US school basketball.

“FIBA acknowledged right this moment that there was an altercation between Mali gamers within the blended zone following the Group B recreation Serbia and Mali on the FIBA Ladies’s Basketball World Cup 2022,” FIBA stated in a press release.

“Following the incident, FIBA has opened an investigation. As soon as the investigation is concluded, FIBA will resolve on any relevant disciplinary measures.”

Mali will play its last recreation right this moment towards Canada at 4pm AEST, which means any penalty will come post-tournament.

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