Knicks' Kanter will not travel to London NBA game due to assassination fears
7 replies, posted
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jan/05/enes-kanter-recep-tayyip-erdogan-nba-assassination-fears-nba
New York Knicks center Enes Kanter will not travel for his team’s upcoming NBA game in London because he believes he could be assassinated for his opposition to the Turkish
president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Kanter announced his decision on Friday night after the Knicks’ 119-112 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. The Knicks later said Kanter also won’t make the trip because of a visa issue.
Kanter will stay in New York while the Knicks travel to face Washington at the O2 Arena in London on 17 January. He says he can’t travel anywhere except the US and Canada because
“there’s a chance I could get killed out there.”
“Sadly, I’m not going because of that freaking lunatic, the Turkish president,” Kanter said. “It’s pretty sad that all the stuff affects my career and basketball, because I want to be out
there and help my team win. But just because of the one lunatic guy, one maniac, one dictator, I can’t even go out there and do my job. It’s pretty sad.”
Kanter has been a vocal critic of Erdoğan for years, once referring to him as “the Hitler of our century”. Kanter’s Turkish passport was revoked in 2017, and an international warrant for
his arrest was issued by Turkey. Kanter is a follower of Fethullah Gülen, a US-based Turkish cleric accused by Turkey’s government of masterminding a failed military coup in 2016.
Kanter will stay in New York while the Knicks travel to face Washington at the O2 Arena in London on 17 January.
This is probably a really dumb question to ask in response to this article but why are the Knicks traveling to the UK to play another US-based team?
US sports franchises trying to branch out to the UK.
NFL is doing it too.
there is a building interest in the sport in the UK and so they do tours now and again.
They'd probably get away with it, too, knowing how gutless our current joke of a president is.
"They handle their people, we handle ours! It's not a concern, i don't see the problem!"
He says he can’t travel anywhere except the US and Canada because “there’s a chance I could get killed out there.”
That sounds a bit paranoid - what does he think it's like over here?
We don't exactly have the best record for stopping foreign state-funded assassinations on our soil.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.