QAT - Captain Ismail dropped by Qatar for `detrimental conduct'

DOHA (FIBA World Championship) - Captain Yaseen Ismail has been dropped from the Qatar squad for what coach Joey Stiebing described as “conduct detrimental to the team”.

The Asian outfit, who have been drawn in Group C - the toughest of the four pools - for the FIBA World Championship in Japan, will make one more cut before their opening game on August 19 against European champions Greece.

Stiebing was concerned by the behaviour of his star forward on a recent trip to Turkey for a warm-up tournament and felt he had to act after the squad’s return to Doha.

He told PA Sport: "Yaseen Ismail, who was team captain, has been released from the team because of conduct detrimental to the team, which I don't really want to get into.

"He's just been released and will no longer be with us. It kind of started in Turkey but it got worse when we got back here.

“My feeling is that if a player doesn’t want to be with us, then I don’t want him with us,” added the American coach.

“I feel like I’ve got players now who are positive, that will work hard and try to do whatever they can to compete in the World Championship.

“Saad Abdulrahman Ali is our new captain. He was the co-captain and is going to take his place.”

Stiebing insists morale is still high among his squad, who are preparing for the semi-finals of the Al Emadi International Tournament they are hosting in Doha.

“I don’t think it’s really affected us at all,” he said.

“We still play the same way we were playing with him. In Turkey, he (Ismail) really wasn’t a contributor in any of the games.

“We’ve just moved on. Life goes on, we have to move on and it really hasn’t affected us that much.”

Qatar face fellow World Championship qualifiers Angola on Saturday, while Latvia and the Philippines will contest the other semi.

By Ben Collins
Exclusively for FIBA