On a ‘knife’s edge’: Basketball Australia boss says players fear for their safety in the Philippines
Basketball Australia’s CEO says the Boomers feared for their physical safety in the Philippines, describing the situation as ‘on a knife’s edge’.
Anthony Moore also called out behaviour by staff and fans who joined in the melee.
“You do have push and shove on the court, for it to escalate to players and officials and fans, assaulting our players and throwing chairs, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mr Moore told Tony Jones.
“We need to take a level of responsibility for what happened on court but what we won’t accept is the sort of behaviour we saw court side from fans and officials.”
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Mr Moore said the Federal Government and Ambassador to the Philippines stepped in to swiftly get the players out.
“Our players stayed on the court for a long, long time because it was deemed that was the safest position in the whole stadium,” he said.
“We were in a situation where our men are in fear of their physical safety that was a knife’s edge that we were operating on.”