French basketball players who play or are going to commit to a club from Russia and Belarus will not be eligible for the national team until the end of the war in Ukraine, the French Basketball Federation announced Monday. The measure even includes the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In an official statement released on its website, the Federation indicated that it will force the players and coaching staff to sign an affidavit in which each athlete must ensure that they will not commit to any club in Russia and Belarus if they wish to represent the colors of France
“If this commitment is not fulfilled, the player or the member of the coaching staff will not respect the criteria to play the next international commitments, including the Paris Olympic Games in 2024,” the agency reported.
The communication from the French governing body appeared from the controversy that arose in recent days after two French internationals signed for Russian teams. On the one hand, Livio Jean-Charles, a former San Antonio Spurs player and with four appearances in the National Team, signed for CSKA Moscow, while Louis Labeyrie, a member of the squad that won the bronze medal in the 2019 World Cup and who represented the team 34 times, joined Kazan. These two cases motivated the response of the French Federation, which in this way intends to limit the possibility of its players joining the powerful Russian clubs.