Boom-time basketball club on the verge of extinction
Staff at Marc Gasol's old Girona team told to stop training with no hope of salaries being paid
As Marc Gasol was helping Memphis Grizzlies to its second and third wins of the new NBA season this week against Sacramento and Minnesota, his old Spanish club Girona lay in turmoil.
The staff and players of the Catalan team have announced their intention to cease training from January 9 after going several months without receiving any pay.
"Both players and coaching staff, as employees of the club, have gone three months without receiving our salary, and the situation has passed from being worrying to unsustainable," they said in a statement. "The club has kept us informed at all times that this fact is a result of the sponsor not fulfilling its contractual obligations."
The staff and players at Club Bàsquet Sant Josep de Girona, which is lying ninth in the Segunda División, hope the situation will be resolved and, as such, are not withdrawing from the league for the time being. Among its ranks, the team coached by Croatian Zan Tabak, who won three Euroleagues with Jugoplastika and an NBA ring with the Houston Rockets, features the still-playing 45-year-old American veteran Darryl Middleton and former León, Granada and Breogán de Lugo player Nacho Ordín.
It is a situation in stark contrast to the glory days of recent years when Girona was in Spain's elite ACB league and, after receiving a cash injection from property developer Akasvayu, signed players of the caliber of Raúl López, Roberto Dueñas and later Marc Gasol, Fernando San Emeterio, Víctor Sada, Germán Gabriel, Arriel McDonald and Gregor Fucka. With them, and under the guidance of coach Svetislav Pesic, the club achieved its greatest international success - the FIBA EuroCup in 2007.
However, in July 2008 the property crisis resulted in Akasvayu breaking its link with CB Sant Josep. The club tried until the last moment to find a sponsor to cover its debt - 6.5 million euros - but without success and found itself playing in the Third Division.
In August 2010, it signed a mixed collaboration and sponsorship agreement for three seasons with local soccer club Girona FC.
The Segunda Divisíon team also finds itself mired in a serious institutional crisis.
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