Belgian national 3×3 basketball team and the Olympics scam: what happened

And’investigation is shaking Belgian basketball and overwhelming the national 3×3 team protagonist, in particular at Olympics 2020. It was in Tokyo that the Lions, the team’s official nickname, had come close to winning bronze, but, as has emerged in recent weeks, their participation would have been based on a real flourish.

In fact, in order to accumulate the results necessary to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, the Belgian team would have declared its participation in many 27 tournaments of 3×3 basketball, which however turned out to be fictitious. Despite this however i results were recorded officially by FIBA, the International Basketball Federation, and thus Belgium was able to accumulate the points necessary to climb the rankings and secure a ticket to Tokyo.

As if that wasn’t enough, the prosecutor’s investigations revealed as well 5 players on the teamonce they arrived in Japan, they would falsified their Coronavirus negative certificates. It is worth remembering that the Tokyo Olympics, initially scheduled for 2020, were postponed by a year due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the competitions were held behind closed doors and the participating athletes were subjected to a strict protocol to avoid any type of contagion. The Belgian Federation, having learned, albeit years late, of the falsified results of the swabs, has suspended two players: Thierry Marien and Nick Celis, suspected of being the linchpin of the operation. Another athlete, Anthony Chada, was instead disqualified for 18 months.

Now, however, the matter has moved to court, where seven members of the Belgian national basketball team 3×3 are indicted on charges of computer fraud and forgery. The Prosecutor’s Office indicated Celis as the main culprit and the creator of the scam of the fictitious tournaments to access the Olympics. The prosecution’s request for him is two years in prison and a fine of one thousand euros. The same sentence, in any case, was requested for the other defendants.