Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda says he would take a “liberal” view of the possibility of naturalising foreign basketball players so they can join the country’s national team. Discussions have been sparked by the team’s failure to qualify for the Olympics.
“I would in principle be liberal about naturalising players, but it should not be a completely artificial naturalisation of a person who is not emotionally connected to Lithuania in any way. There should still be some kind of emotional connection,” Nausėda told reporters during the send-off ceremony of the Olympic athletes to the Paris Olympics on Tuesday.
The debate on naturalization of players was triggered last week when the Lithuanian men’s basketball team lost to the host team in Puerto Rico in the final of the Olympic Qualifiers and missed out on the Games for the second time in a row.
“The world is moving in that direction, and it is being viewed a little more openly than it was ten or twenty years ago, but [...] we would not like to do it in a fake way,” the Lithuanian president said.
The Lithuanian men’s national basketball team has so far had one naturalised player, Canadian-Lithuanian Ignas Brazdeikis who had his Lithuanian citizenship restored in 2021.
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