Jabusele: Partizan fans threw objects and spat at him
Panathinaikos forward Gershon Jabusele says he was pelted with objects and spat on as he left the court at Belgrade Arena, and that everyone knows but nobody reacts.
As he walked off the floor at Belgrade Arena, Gershon Jabusele says, things were thrown at him and people spat in his face. The French player for Panathinaikos described it after the EuroLeague game against Partizan, which his team won 72-55.
How does Jabusele see the atmosphere in the Arena?
The reception did not surprise him. The Grobari remember him from the 2023 playoff series between Partizan and Real Madrid, so he gets a hot welcome in Belgrade. Jabusele says he never runs from an atmosphere like that and takes it in a positive way:
That’s how it is. I never run away from an atmosphere like that. I’m the type of player who takes it in a positive way. When you’re a competitor and you love basketball, playing in an arena in front of 15,000 people who are against you is something nice. It’s something I enjoy and love. It doesn’t bother me at all.
So the noise from the stands is not the issue for him, since he treats playing in front of a full arena cheering against him as part of the competitive job. Two newsrooms recorded this part of the statement in different words, so the version from B92 is used here.
What bothered him as he left the court?
His complaint concerns a single moment, and he singled it out himself:
The only thing I would point out is the moment when I was leaving the court, they started throwing all kinds of objects at me, they spat in my face and did similar things. But what can I say? That’s how it is. The problem is that everyone knows about it, and nobody does anything. Nobody reacts, and it continues.
Jabusele does not say who should react or what exactly he expects to change, and he did not name the earlier cases he means when he says it continues. The contrast is clear all the same: an atmosphere he likes on one side, thrown objects and spitting on the other.
What did he take away from Belgrade?
On the court, Jabusele finished with seven points, five rebounds and three assists in Panathinaikos’ 72-55 win. He closed his statement with a line about what mattered most to him:
Anyway, we took the win, and that’s the most important thing.
His statement comes down to two messages. The first is that the fan fire does not touch him, because he enjoys it. The second is that there is a limit after all, and that throwing objects and spitting cross it, something that, as he puts it, everyone knows about and nobody does anything about.
