Basketball: Farce over visas leaves England facing humiliation

England's senior men, the flagship team of the sport, face humiliation on and off the court when they face Russia in the European Championships in Moscow on Wednesday because the governing body failed to organise visas for key members of the team.

Embarrassingly for the reputation of English basketball, the coach Laszlo Nemeth is unlikely to have a full bench of 10 players to face the former European champions. There will be little sympathy in the CSKA Stadium from the Russians, who ended the November round of fixtures in Group A with defeats against Slovenia and Portugal and will be intent on amassing a huge score as they chase the second qualifying place behind the leaders, Italy. Nemeth said: "If the Russians don't win big they may not reach the finals in Sweden, so you can imagine the attitude and determination we will face from them."

As revealed in Saturday's Independent, England Basketball did not gather in passports from several continental-based players, without which documentation the Russian authorities refused to issue visas for Andy Betts, Tony Dorsey and Mike Bernard.

Nevertheless, Betts, Dorsey and Bernard were in the initial team issued by England Basketball along with Julius Joseph, one of the replacements for the injured duo Chris Haslam and Andy Gardiner.

Betts, Dorsey, Bernard and Joseph were then all missing from a revised list, leaving just seven players to meet Nemeth at Heathrow for today's trip to Moscow via Prague.

ENGLAND (v Russia, Moscow, European Championship Group A, Wednesday): R Baker (London Towers), Y Williams (Essex Leopards), S Hansell (Larissa, Greece), R Windle (Birmingham Bullets), M Martin (St-Etienne, Fr), D Herriman (Breda, Neth), C Pearson (Vichy, Fr).