England Basketball Suspected of Sabotage

England Basketball was accused yesterday of sabotaging the national team before tonight's European Championship game against Russia.

Laszlo Nemeth turned up in Moscow with only seven players after officials of England Basketball failed to obtain visas for four of the squad: Andy Betts, Tony Dorsey, Mike Bernard and Julius Joseph.

"It's a shambles," said the England captain Ronnie Baker. "You can only assume they are trying to deliberately sabotage the team, trying to sabotage Laszlo's reign as coach.

"They knew about this fixture 18 months ago. The whole squad was together for games in November. They could have taken our passports then and done it in a day."

This is the latest in a series of setbacks for the England team, culminating in what Nemeth has called "the worst year of my entire life". When England lost 97-39 in Italy in November after 10 months without a training session together, the coach let it be known that he was "free and available". He is expected to resign after Saturday's game with Portugal in Birmingham.

The trip to Moscow is the team's biggest shambles since they missed a flight to Zagreb. Baker blames the governing body for "devaluing the national team" but his comments have upset Betty Codona, England Basketball's chairwoman.

"I'm absolutely appalled that Ronnie's come out and said this," she said. "I don't think these players know what's going on.

"Yes, staff have made mistakes. But it's absolutely not deliberate and anyone who is telling the players this is trying to cause mischief."

England Basketball has been beset by staff and financial difficulties and it struggles to run its various national teams on a budget of £100,000 a year. Attempts to persuade Sport England to increase its funding have been rebuffed.

"Unfortunately," Codona said, "the government agenda is that if a sport is likely to win a medal it will be funded and if it is not likely to win it will not be funded."