Image: Akhbar al-Yawm (source article)
Aoun receives Sagesse with the Arab basketball cup: ‘your win is Lebanon's’
The president said the club's third Arab club title shows Lebanon is not isolated, and urged that sport stay clear of politics.
President Joseph Aoun received a delegation from Sagesse basketball club and the Lebanese Basketball Federation at Baabda Palace, where it presented him with the Arab Club Championship trophy and a club jersey bearing the number one, Akhbar al-Yawm and Elsport reported.
Sagesse won the title for the third time in its history in a final played in Beirut on 20 October. The delegation, led by federation president Akram Halabi, honorary club president MP Jihad Pakradouni and club president Ragheb Haddad, thanked the president for sponsoring the tournament, which Beirut hosted. It said the victory brought the cup back to Lebanon for the tenth time and that, for the first time, every Lebanese club in the competition reached the quarter-finals.
"Your win is not just a win for Sagesse but for Lebanon as a whole, whose name you raised high," Aoun said, adding that the result, achieved in difficult circumstances, showed that determination and firm will can overcome obstacles and that Lebanon is present on the Arab and international sporting scene rather than isolated.
He stressed that winning matters less than holding on to the title, and called for keeping sport away from politics and personal interests while highlighting the national belonging of Lebanon's athletes.
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