Lucrative China contract keeps El Khatib from playing for Lebanon

Fadi El Khatib misses the 2015 Fiba Asia Championship. Photo from Fiba.com

CHANGSHA CITY, China – Lebanon, Gilas Pilipinas’ quarterfinal foe in the Fiba Asia Olympic Qualifier on Thursday, literally needed to win its final game just to be able to make it to the knockout stages.

While all the other perennial contenders were just trying to improve on their positions for the elimination phase, the Lebanese survived its first KO match on Tuesday night against Jordan after posting an 80-76 victory.

Fadi El Khatib, because of his lucrative contract with his mother club, Foshan, in the Chinese professional league, failed to make the trip to here as this edition of the championship failed to see one of Asia’s best scoring machines ever.

It turned out that El Khatib, who is 36 years old and nearing the twilight of his illustrious career, couldn’t find a way to have his Foshan contract insured to be able to play for Lebanon here.

“Fadi showed great interest to play for the national team, but he has a contract with China and he wanted to insure that contract,” Lebanon coach Veselin Metic told Filipino scribes.

“But insurace (policies) in Europe are different from that in Asia and we couldn’t find a way to insure his contract.”

Metic declined to say how much the China package of El Khatib is, but said that the premium to insure that was more than $40,000.

“He would have loved to play. He showed love for the national team,” Metic said. “But at the end of the day, there was no way.”