The trip by the Huesca coach to a Zornotza player: “It is unacceptable and he deserves an exemplary sanction”

Teknei Zornotza has been the victim of an unusual unsportsmanlike gesture. Lobe Huesca Magic Court. The scoreboard reflects 70 even with less than four minutes left in the game. That’s when the local coach, Rafa Sanz, unceremoniously trips the American Kyle Cardaci when he was looking to get rid of his mark. After feeling the leg, the player turns around and does not understand what had just happened. Until he saw the video several days later, it did not occur to him that it had been intentional. The play ended with a final triple scored by his teammate.

The events occurred on November 5, in the Second FEB match that faced the Aragonese team and the Biscayan team in Aragonese lands. Now, two weeks later, the action has gone viral on social networks. The president of the club, Joxe Etxebarria, considers that what has happened is a “shame.” «Let the sanction be exemplary so that it is not repeated. If these actions go unpunished, it seems like we are giving immunity to the people who do this. For a coach to do this is unacceptable,” he explains.

The Biscayan team, after seeing the images, formally communicated a note to the Spanish Basketball Federation this Tuesday. Etxebarria recounts the origin of the events. «We had not realized. What’s more, it is now that the player has seen the video. He believed that he had tripped or collided with someone, that they had not done it intentionally because he had his back turned. Last Monday some Catalan friends of the Zornotza player, Álex Mazaira, sent us this sequence. We saw and said ‘but what is this?’ he laments.

Mazaira himself wrote the following on the social network “This stains our profession.” From the FEB, they have informed the green team that they have transferred it to the Competition Committee. «The punishments, the harsher they are, the more aware people become of the seriousness of the events. “It’s very angry,” he explains, before lamenting that, so far, they have not received any communication from Huesca. Yes, on the contrary, from several members of the Aragonese team, very embarrassed by what happened, in a match that ended with a local victory 85-80 after extra time. «It has no real impact on the game. The referee is looking at the ball and being on the back side, he doesn’t pay attention,” he says.