In an official press release, Panionios replied to Devin Sweetney and DeAndre Liggins’ accusations.
Sweetney spoke with Sportando while Liggins talked through his agency.
About Devin Sweetney.
“Panionios met all of its foreign athletes in a private meeting on Wednesday, March 11th. Due to the seriousness of the situation in Greece and considering that health is the most important thing, a new meeting was agreed on Friday, March 13, with foreign athletes at the OEM’s offices.
On March 12th the team practiced;
On the same day t was announced the postponement of the 21st EKO Basket League competition and it was decided that a newer ESAKE Board (with likely dates on Tuesday 17 or Wednesday 18 March) would decide whether or not to continue the championship.
Recognizing the true size of the problem, our team management decided to suspend all practices indefinitely.
At Friday’s March 13th meeting, where ALL our foreign athletes (DeAndre Liggins) were present, it was agreed to wait for the decision to continue or close the year following the decision of the coming ESARC Board, ie by Wednesday, March 18 at the latest. At the Friday March 13th meeting, where ALL our foreign athletes (DeAndre Liggins) were present, it was agreed to wait for the decision to continue or close the year following the decision of the coming ESARC Board, ie by Wednesday, March 18 at the latest.
At the same time, it was agreed that a monthly salary would be paid to all players if they continued the championship, and if they did not continue the championship a deal would be made on a case-by-case basis for the athletes’ accruals and then returned to their home country.
Athlete Devin Sweetney tried to get in touch with our team president on Sunday afternoon (15/3) but this was not possible, which however happened early on Monday 16 March.
We communicating via email and the athlete did not dispute the above AGREEMENT and states that the reason for his departure was Donald Trump’s announcement of flight restrictions to the United States. Our team president asked him to inform team manager Christos Christodoulou about the flight he needed and the athlete responded that he had already taken a return ticket on his own. Let us know that it is a standard practice, for all teams, to book return flights for foreign athletes and through affiliate travel agencies, so that any change is possible and at little or no cost.
Also be informed that with the security measures of Greece, anyone landing in our country should remain for self-isolation (quarantine) for 2 weeks, so automatically going back the athlete removes the the right to use it by the team in the event of the continuation of the EKO Basketball League championship and therefore automatically – at its discretion – excluded from the team. The athlete asked the head of our team to contact the Greek representative, but to no avail. We informed that at the time the athlete left Greece there was a 2 day overdue payment of his half monthly salary. TWO DAYS LATE PAYMENT OF HALF MONTHLY SALARY in case anyone thinks there may have been a typographical error.
About DeAndre Liggins
We do not question that he is DeAngre Liggins official agent, but we say that we were communicating only with his Greek agent, with whom we had communication everyday and we were updating him about why his papers were not ready/ valid AEK and Lavrio.
The Greek agent has repeatedly telephoned us, demanding that the foreign agent terminate the player’s contract if he was not playing against Lavrio. In our possession we have forwarded (edited by the Greek Agent) a message from the foreign agent requesting a termination of the contract in this case.
Despite our persistent efforts, unfortunately we were not able to issue a ticket from the EEC and the athlete did not even fight against Lavrion (7/3). The Greek Athlete Agent knows all our efforts and can certainly confirm that the ONLY reason the athlete has not competed in any of our team’s matches is the inability to find a compromise with Agent Lu Diamantopoulos regarding his ban of FIBA to our team for debts from the 2014/2015 season, during which we were NOT in charge of the team.
As in the case of Devin Sweetney, DeAndre Liggins had a return ticket after the end of the championship, which we could easily change if we were asked to.
The athlete left Greece sometime between Thursday 12 and Friday 13 March and there was no overdue debt from our team to him.
We emphasize once again that health is the most important thing and we will never criticize any athlete who asks us to leave for reasons of force majeure, especially at such a time when we live in unprecedented situations.
From this point on, however, there is a huge difference between trying to get rid of us with slanderous and outrageous publications.
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