Jonquel Jones Changes Her Citizenship

Jonquel Jones, the WNBA Bahamian sensation, who was born and raised in Eight Mile Rock and came up under Coach Gladstone Moon McPhee, is no longer a Bahamian or so we think.  The Freeport New announced on 20 September that she ahs accepted the citizenship of the Eastern European state in the Balkans called Bosnia- Herzegovina. Here is what was quoted by the paper from the Council of Ministers of that country:

“The Council of Ministers of BiH, upon a proposal by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, took a decision on admission of female basket(ball) player Jonquel Ortflea Thierese Jones into the citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

Let’s take a technical point.  Under the Bahamian constitution, if a Bahamian takes the citizenship of another country, the Governor General can strip that person of her citizenship. This assumes that Ms. Jones has renounced her Bahamian citizenship. If she still has it, it can be taken away.

That is unlikely but the whole thing shook up the country because it was rumored that the male athlete Stephen Newbold from Moore’s Island was so pissed off by the way he is being treated by the athletic establishment in the country that he too was going to adopt another citizenship.

The basketball establishment in The Bahamas seemed to take a more charitable view of the change in citizenship and blessed it, saying that this country did not offer the opportunities that Bosnia could for Ms. Jones and, so they would not stand in her way.

That is what we now face, the raid of our talent in The Bahamas and in the region generally, Our countries say they can’t afford it but the feeling one is left with is they can afford what they want to afford like dumping 65 million dollars into a  dead asset.