India vs. Qatar Preview

As India basketball fans celebrate the win over Afghanistan, avenging our two losses in the South Asian Games earlier this year, we might want to remember that there are five games ahead in which we will be facing favored teams. So far we have established that we are 7 points better than Afghanistan. But in truth, the Afghans are beginners on the international scene, and their national team was only in training together for two weeks prior to the Asian Games. India was able to take advantage of the fact that their team had been in training for months under new Head Coach William Harris.

The next game is against Qatar, who won the silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. In the current FIBA World Rankings, Qatar is 29^th. They are fourth in FIBA Asia behind China, Iran and Lebanon. FIBA Asia is comprised of 44 teams. To qualify for the FIBA World’s, you have to finish top three at the FIBA Asia Championships.

India and Qatar last played in August 2009 at the FIBA Asia Championships in Tianjin, China. Qatar won by 25 points, 95 – 70.

From that game, there are two major changes. Talwinderjit Singh, who led India’s scoring with 17 points, isn’t playing due to injury. Tanguy Ngombo is now on Qatar’s team and has been scoring near 30 points per game from the small forward position. When I went to find out more about Ngombo, I came across some info that enlightened India Basketball fans might want to know.

Qatar is a oil rich country of approx. 1.5 million people, 350,000 of whom are natural born citizens. The other 1.15 million are expatriates taking up employment in various sectors of the Qatari economy. Keep in mind that the population of Delhi, India alone is 14 million.

So how does a country with a population of 350,000 have a basketball team ranked so far ahead of a country of 1.15 billion? Partly because Qatar plays by different rules than the other teams.

Lets start off by explaining who can suit up for a national team. According to FIBA Rules:

1. If a player holds a citizenship of [country] from birth, then he is a citizen of that country without a doubt.

2. If a player doesn’t hold a citizenship of [country] from birth but has parents who are, then he can apply for dual-citizenship status.

3. If a player neither holds a citizenship of [country] from birth nor do his parents, then he can apply for citizenship of [country] through naturalization.

This is the rule ( #3) that FIBA has highlighted, wherein only ONE player under this case is allowed to participate.

All countries play by these rules to different extents. To my knowledge, China, Iran and India all use only players who qualify under rule # 1 (natural born citizens). Some other countries in FIBA Asia such as Philippines and Lebanon utilize rule number #2 to a larger extent. Other countries such as Jordan, (Rashiem Wright) add one top flight player under rule #3.

Then there is Qatar, which is infamous in FIBA Asia circles for being the team that utilizes rule number #3 to a greater degree than any other competitor. This has led to charges of cheating and corruption. Although the rule states that there can only be one rule #3 player, common knowledge is that Qatar has at least 10. Their new star player Tanguy Ngombo is from Congo.

So how is this allowed to happen?

“Sheikh Saud bin Al Al-Thani of Qatar was re-elected the president of FIBA Asia at the FIBA Asia Congress 2010, which concluded at the Malaysian capital. “This is a victory for the sport of basketball in Asia,” Sheikh Saud said on his re-election. - Sports News Unlimited

And this was from CNN:

“One country that has stretched the rules to breaking point is Qatar, who has used its vast gas wealth to attract and naturalize a host of players.

The Qatari FA even offered to pay Brazilian striker Ailton, then the top scorer in the German Bundesliga, $1million to come and play for Qatar in 2004, even though he had never set foot in the country. The move led to FIFA introducing emergency legislation banning naturalizations from taking place if there was no connection between the player and their prospective country.

FIFA has tried to tighten up the rules. Last May FIFA agreed a rule change which stated that a player must live in their new country for five years before they can play for the national team.

Have the rules on naturalization of footballers devalued international football?But for a country the size of Qatar, which has a population of fewer than one million, there are few other options. “The only way Qatar or Bahrain are ever going to be competitive is to import players and naturalize them,” explains Jesse Fink, an Australian writer on Asian football and author of “15 Days in June: How Australia Became a Football Nation.”

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/fo…ion/index.html

The same strategy that Qatar used to rise to 3^rd place in Asian World Cup qualifying group, is the same strategy they have used to build their national basketball team. If you get a chance to watch the game or see pictures, this might answer your question as to why the Qatari players are mostly Africans.

India vs. Qatar at the 16^th Asian Games tips off at 4:45 pm.