Gamble didn’t pay off

In 2014, a smart guy brought in nine Bosnia-Herzegovina and several Senegalese teenagers to Doha to line them up for the national basketball team, avoiding classification as naturalized because they were issued Qatari passports before turning 16. The gamble was the “kids” would mature to become the next Bojan Bogdanovic or Gorgui Dieng. Transporting teeners from home to a foreign country was easy because all it took was money. But transforming them into basketball stars was a risky proposition.

The nine Bosnians were 7-0 Meho Haracic, 6-10 Emir Mujkic, 6-7 Faris Avdic, 6-10 Alen Hadzibegovic, 6-7 Jasmin Memic, 6-6 Nedim Muslic, 6-6 Kaid Zubovic, 6-1 Faris Sadikovic and 6-9 Hamza Kurtovic. One of the Senegal recruits was 6-6 Babakar Dieng. Seven of the nine Bosnians are still playing in the Qatari league with Haracic, Mujkic, Avdic and Muslic serving the national squad. Memic left three years ago and Hadzibegovic moved out in 2018 to barnstorm Japan, Russia, Poland, Montenegro and lately, Lithuania while visiting Qatar twice to play.

At the Hangzhou Asian Games, Qatar enlisted Muslic, Haracic, Dieng, Advic and another foreigner Seydou Ndoye to beef up its national team. To no avail. In the qualifier for a quarterfinals ticket, Qatar was trounced by the Philippines, 80-41 with Advic and Dieng netting two points each, Haracic three, Ndoye seven and Muslic the only double figure scorer with 12.

Qatar experimented with a handful of imports at the 2011 FIBA Asia Cup and five were declared ineligible because they were issued Qatari passports after 16. They were Tanguy Ngombo, Ousseynou Ndiaye, Mansour El Hadary, Hassan Mohamed and Mame Ndour. Qatar went on to play with a decimated lineup and made a mockery of the tournament by fouling out every player until only one was left on the floor in its games. Three years later, Qatar discovered a loophole and recruited teeners. Now, nearly 10 years after the first batch of youngsters planed in, Qatar basketball hasn’t progressed.

Theoretically, a national team may be made up of imports with no blood lineage for as long as they were issued passports before 16. That eligibility rule has to be flawed. At the 2015 World Handball Championships, only four of Qatar’s 17 national players were Qataris and the rest were “naturalized” from different countries. Qatar got the silver medal with Spanish coach Valero Lopez. Will it come down to this in basketball?