…Did I write correctly? Did I make a mistake? If I made a mistake, please, correct it, do not hesitate because such outstanding athlete and a large number of his fans have been criticized a lot recently.

Why did they hurt so many people?...

You will say, they hurt us too… never mind, if one of the best basketball players (if not the best) of your country will play for the army team of your country’s enemy (the army which loves to invade our country).

Yes, he will play for this army and not fight. It is just a game and he will please millions of Russian soldiers, generals, military or civilian officials and most importantly, their leader with his game…

Or will he not please them?

Wait a minute, I could not understand something: if Tornike chose this team, then he should fight for its success, right? And if he succeeds, e.g. he will please them!

That is all, this part has cleared up but I do not understand the next part: so, as Tornike Shengelia will play for CSKA, I have to support him to win titles for his Russian army team and please the abovementioned khuylos…

Of my god, this last sentence is so difficult to imagine…

I want to address those who differentiate policy from sport:

We will not be right if we do not support Shengelia to please khuylos and you, who support Shengelia, will you be right?

It is really disappointing that Shengelia made such decision and did not take the Georgian fans’ opinion and attitude into consideration

Also, I have to note that contribution of our society (mine too) to this decision is not small. For example: I worked for Rezonansi newspaper in the middle of the 90s and I tried to respond to the outflow of Georgian football players to the Russian clubs. I did not like this process but from professional point of view, the situation was very bad: large number of Georgians suffered from disqualification throughout the season. Basically, it happened due to the attitude of coaches and team leaders but in some cases, it was the fault of our players and only few were successful…

My colleagues and I used to write about it in Rezonansi and other well-known newspapers of that time but neither frequency nor the quality of the demand was such to inspire the public.

You will probably say half of Abkhazia went to Russia, in spite of everything (the occupation of Abkhazia was relatively new) and you will be right.

However, we should have tried our best – the interest of the country should have been above the interest of sport and we would have been much better in sport too.

We should have tried it! Nobody knows what would have come out but we did not even try…

Today we have an amazing reality – they are telling me to support CSKA. I will clarify: basketball is a team game and you cannot support only Shengelia. I thought it was known that Shengelia’s transfer to CSKA was wrong for Shengelia and image of the country.

I thought and I was sure that I would support the Georgian national team everywhere and always but the whole team supports Tornike. Now these people, who made me proud before, are telling me to support CSKA. Let the Russians support CSKA!!!

P.S. The position of the Georgian Basketball Federation is the same as the team members.

I did not think that Salome Zurabishvili, president of the country, would be more adequate than the leadership of the federation.

“Transfer of the captain of the Georgia’s national team to CSKA Moscow is disappointing and unacceptable for me, as a president of Georgia”, - stated Zurabishvili.

I am not a supporter of Zurabishvili and generally, I do not like her statements. But in this case, she is right.