Toko Shengelia shared his view on the incident between Georgia NT and Turkey NT players that took place on Sunday as members of the Georgian team allegedly attacked Furkan Korkmaz in the hallway leading to the locker rooms.
The Georgia NT star shared his side of the story via Georgia Basketball Federation IG account. Shengelia was among the players that were involved in the incident, per the Turkish Basketball Federation.
Shengelia repeated that he was provoked, which is also the stance of the Georgian federation on the issue. The GBF called out head coach Ergin Ataman and Turkish fans for obscene gestures against them.
Shengelia and the federation also noted the players have received death threats from fans following the incident.
“An ugly situation was created out of thin air and it is very unfortunate how it was handled. It could easily have been avoided from both sides,” the statement reads
“On one hand, we could have reacted differently and not have let our emotions get the best of us.
We should have done a better job not reacting to the provocation. We reacted as human beings, as men, and demonstrated our reaction.
On the other hand, when the conflict starts in the court, it should always stay there. You should not ask other teams’ players in front of their friends, family, and thousands of fans to go to the tunnel and continue the fight there.
Not only that, but when we were on our way to the locker room, the provocations continued from the other side of the tunnel. We were called every kind of name and asked with hand gestures to go there and fight.
Also, the declarations that have been made to the media from the Turkish side, have painted a very different picture, which created aggression from Turkish fans towards us and our families.
Aggression includes very disturbing messages and death threats.”
