The Colombian Basketball Federation has announced that it will take legal action against an independent Russian basketball team for allegedly using the name and uniform of the Colombian national team.
The team is competing in the Russian Friendship Cup tournament in Perm, which features Russian amateur teams unofficially representing various national teams. The Colombian federation claims it has never given permission for tournament teams to use its image.
“The Colombian Basketball Federation has not approved any clubs to participate in the Russia Friendship Cup,” the federation said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Russian Basketball Federation president and former NBA player Andrei Kirilenko has said the team has coordinated with the Colombian government through private channels and has denied any wrongdoing.
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Retired Russian-American basketball player Andrei Kirilenko attends the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 draw at Shenzhen Bay Arena in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China on March 16, 2019. (Visual China Group via Getty Images)
“I want to emphasize that all communication with the Colombian team was exclusively through official communication channels,” Kirilenko told Match TV. “Our position remains the same: all communication and coordination is exclusively through verified, official sources.”
The team, disguised as Colombia, has been one of the worst performing teams in the tournament so far, suffering a 155-53 defeat to the home team and then losing to Venezuela, 108-57. The team’s next game was scheduled to be against Russia on Friday, but the match was cancelled.
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Kirilenko said the reason for the cancellation was that the team’s performance was so poor that they had to revise their schedule to make up the gap to other teams.
Colombian basketball players stand on the podium with silver medals during the men’s basketball team competition at the Pan American Games Santiago 2023 at Polideportivo 1, National Stadium Sports Park, Santiago, on November 4, 2023. (Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images)
“After the first match, we saw that the current level of the Colombian team is not up to our expectations, which is disappointing for all of us,” Kirilenko said. “In this regard, we are already reviewing the schedule and format of the tournament to make it more balanced and competitive.”
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The case is just the latest in a series of recent punishments imposed on Russian athletes and sports organizations.
Russia was barred from participating in the recent Paris Olympics because it invaded Ukraine just four days after the end of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The invasion violated the Olympic Truce, a resolution that calls for all countries to lay down their arms and not engage in conflict from one week before the start of the Olympics until one week after they finish.
This screenshot taken from a distribution video released on August 20, 2024, shows Ukrainian troops in combat during a military operation in Malaya Loknya, Kursk Region, Russia. (Airborne Brigade/Distributed via Reuters)
Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva Valieva was stripped of her gold medal from the Beijing Games after testing positive for trimetazidine, a banned substance used to prevent angina, at the Russian national championships in December 2021. Valieva was found guilty of doping in January, her team was disqualified and the gold medal was presented to the United States in Paris, more than two years after the original Games.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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