Havana, Cuba.- It is well known by everyone that the Cuban basketball does not experience its best time as it does not have modern facilities with the most current technologies.

The deficit of resources ata grass root level and that is to say balls, the court to train, modern ones and gyms with the required equipment, just to mention some examples, have deprived the local basketball of the best results in international competitions.

Dalia Henry, who is the national commissioner, announced to the local Radio Rebelde news station that it is not possible to acquire the necessary implements for the domestic basketball’s practice and that hinders their entrance into the nation.

“This has affected us a lot, especially in terms of the sports facilities. The economic blockade prevents us from having local courts with the proper technical demands. The Molten and Adidas balls, with are the ones used in international competitions, are very expensive and we have to pay the double of the price in related markets.”

“The visas for the local players to attend to tournaments in the United States are another of the limitations provided by the economic, trade and financial blockade while the United States is the main power of that sport in the world.”

“We have carried out the FIBA AMERICAS tournament and the issue about the visa process has been hindered for us to travel to the United States. We had to get those visas through a third nation and that represented a higher economic expense”, the former player of the local national team, said.

“That sport discipline has got the collaboration of nations like China and Mexico where the Cubans have traditionally carried out training periods. We have signed related treaties with other federations and the male team was in China and the women one trained in Mexico, for example. We have sometimes been provided cloths donations and any type of sports implement ones.”

It is true the U.S. blockade exists since the beginning of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, but it is also real it is not the same at present than the one experienced by this spot in the 1970 decade which is regarded as the golden decade of the Cuban male basketball.

It was essential for the favorable results of that sports discipline having the support of a power as the former Soviet Union and it is essential having the necessary resources for the development of any sport in the current world, especially in terms of trying to attempt to the majority of the related international events in order to increase the athlete’s qualitative and quantitative level.