Qatar Basketball

Musa & Saleem Inspire kids

Yaseen Ismail Musa and Mohamed Seleem Abdulla were the part of the Qatar team that stunned one and all on the way to winning the FIBA 3x3 World Championship in Moscow in June this year.
The two players were also in the team which finished runners-up to Novi Sad from Serbia in the recently held prestigious FIBA 3x3 All Stars final at the Katara Cultural Village.
Now both Musa and Abdulla are ranked 8th and 14th in the world and it is the first time that any 3x3 player from the Asia and Arab world has secured such high rankings.
Headed by dynamic Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al Thani, the Qatar Basketball Federation, organised a felicitation function for the two players at its Al Gharafa Club Training Hall and combined it with the weekly basketball festival for under-12 boys, hoping to inspire the young players with the presence of the stalwarts.
Players from all the clubs - Al Rayyan, Al Gharafa, Al Sadd, El Jaish, Al Arabi, Qatar Sports Club, Al Ahli, Al Wakrah, Al Shamal and Al Khor – and Qatar Foundation attended the festival, took selfies with the two stars and got the basketballs, T-shirts and signed posters from Musa and Abdulla in gifts.
Also present on the occasion were QBF Secretary-General Mohammed Ali Hobash al Marri, QBF Assistant Secretary-General Mohamed Ali Subaei, QBF Board Member Ashraf Abu Issa and Al Rayyan Club basketball head Ajlan al Aneizi.
The kids looked quite excited by the presence of Musa and Abdulla and interacted with them as well. The two Al Rayyan players asked some basic questions to test the knowledge of the youngsters and all of them displayed their intelligence by giving right answers!
Musa was indeed delighted by being among the kids and said, “It has been a great honour for me to have been playing basketball for more than 20 years for Qatar. In my young days, there was no such facilities and support. The young players are really very fortunate to have got such a nice playing environment now.
“Now the time has come to pay back to my country for all that I got through this game. I felt really moved to be among them today. It was great to chat with them. I want to thank the QFB for inviting Mohamed and me on this occasion. I feel if we could inspire a player or two in this lot to Musas or Mohameds in future, it will be a big contribution by us in the development of the sport.
“We’ll keep coming and motivating them in whatever ways we can,” added Musa.
Sheikh Saoud was quite ecstatic by a good turn-out of the players, the presence of Musa and Abdulla. He said, “I’m really very glad to see such a big gathering of young player, who came to see Yaseen and Mohamed.
“We organise the basketball festivals every Saturday and but we’re celebrating today’s occasion for two reasons – this is the first time that any player from Asia and Arab world has secured such a high rankings in the 3x3 basketball and the second thing is we want these kids to make them their role models and follow them to become like Musa and Mohamed in future.
“We know well that if we have our grass-root base strong and productive, our game will flourish and prosper. We want to send this message out. I know the journey is long but we’ve already taken a few good steps forward. We have now to just keep working in the right direction,” added Sheikh Saoud.