Unreported World

Cuba, Basketball and Betrayal (2013x1)

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Paralympian wheelchair basketball star Ade Adepitan is granted access on a rare scale to some of Cuba's most famous basketball stars, to investigate why some of them have defected to the USA just as the country seems to be opening up. Adepitan and director David Fuller travel to Ciego De Avila, six hours east of Havana, and home to the best basketball team in Cuba. Many of the Ciego Buffalo stars are in the national team, but some of them have made headlines for reasons not to do with performance on the basketball court. Nine months previously, Cuba's government allowed the national team to visit the US territory of Puerto Rico. Within hours they defected, along with three players from other clubs. Adepitan talks to some of their fellow team members, who had the chance to defect, but chose to return to Cuba. 'They went to look for economic improvement,' one of them tells him. 'Players here don't earn very much.' Some of the Buffalo players are good enough to play in top international leagues but, they explain, while ordinary Cubans are now allowed to leave the country for up to two years, high-value people like surgeons and sports stars are not given the same right. The Cuban government says that the players are trained and maintained by the state, so they should stay in Cuba. But that's not what some of the fans tell Adepitan. They say they want their basketball players to travel abroad and play for the best teams, developing their skills and ultimately improving the Cuban national team. And, while self improvement is also high on the agenda of those players considering defecting, the economic effect of the decades-old US trade embargo on sports stars who could be millionaires in other countries also comes into play. The government provides free state education and health care, but there's a shortage of housing. Adepitan and Fuller visit the home of William Lewis. He's one of the top basketball players in Cuba, but lives in a small hou