Missing cup back home after nearly half a century

shahennews

 In 1973, Orthodoxi were the champions of Jordan’s Jordan Basketball League but, inexplicably, they never had the cup on their shelves.

However, and after 48 years, the cup is back home and now stands where it should have been since a long time ago in an incident that does not come along very often.

Surprisingly, a veteran Al-Ahli player, Orthodoxi’s longtime rivals, stumbled upon the cup in an Al-Ahli warehouse while he was looking for memorabilia he wanted to use for a TV interview.

President of Al-Ahli Omar Shuqum says neither he nor the club management have any idea how the cup ended up in their warehouse.

“We do not know how this cup ended up in our warehouses, but we heard that the final match at the time witnessed a dispute on the field, without knowing other details,” Shuqum adds.

Shuqum explains: “Recently, a TV interview was being recorded with one of the club’s players to talk about his career and Al-Ahli achievements. The player went to the warehouse, in search of the titles and trophies that Al-Ahli won to display during the program but, surprisingly, he stumbled upon a cup with the engraving: (Orthodoxi – Basketball League Champions of 1973).”

Shortly after the finding, Al-Ahli Club management visited Orthodoxi and returned the cup to where it belongs after decades of being lost among another club’s trophies.

“We put the cup in a special box, and went to the headquarters of Orthodoxi, without informing them about the reason for the visit. At the meeting, we told them that we hold a 48-year-old trust, before offering them the lost cup,” Shuqum says.

Orthodoxi appreciated the move and said in a statement that it reflected true Jordanian values and ethics, stressing that sport can build bridges of mutual respect and trust on and off the field.