G.B.'s prospects in this Summer's EuroBasket Division A qualifiers received a major boost today with the announcement that Luol Deng has been given clearance to play, after a month of agonising over whether insurance problems would rule him out.

Back at the beginning of August Deng was celebrating not only having signed a lucrative six-year deal with the Chicago Bulls, but having done so in plenty of time to be able to concentrate on GB's preparations. “I wanted to have this finalised before the British games because I’m passionate about my commitment to the national team" he said.

Not long after this, however, potential problems with insurance threw his participation into doubt, and ruled him out of the series of preparation games that the team has been playing.

An insurance agreement between the NBA and FIBA Europe covers players competing with their national teams, but due to a back injury that kept Deng out of action for a few games early last season, MetLife, the NBA's insurers, announced that they were putting Deng on the "exclusion list", meaning that they would not insure him outside the NBA.

That left the Bulls with no option but to refuse permission for Deng to play with GB, unless and until a satisfactory insurance could be put into place.

And that's how the situation remained for the last three weeks, with fears increasing that the potential cost of such insurance (quoted, I believe, at around £270,000) would rule Deng out of GB's campaign, at least for this year.

Yesterday, however, a news article on FIBA Europe revealed that hopes were rising that the deadlock could be broken. British Basketball performance director Chris Spice is quoted as saying that though GB "... still have not received clearance ..." they hoped "... to make an announcement later today or first thing tomorrow..."

It was with great relief, therefore, that I caught a newsflash on Radio Five Live this afternoon (as I was driving down to the Women's game in Cardiff) to the effect that GB have announced that Deng has been given clearance to play in this Summer's matches. It must be that the Bulls are happy with the cover that GB have arranged, otherwise, as Chris Spice told us earlier, "... they wouldn't release him."

With that scare out of the way, coach Chris Finch now has four clear days to prepare Deng for Wednesday's opening fixture, in Israel!

The insurance cover is for this year only, but as Spice also told us recently, " We hope to use the next year to fight the medical situation and/or obtain a sponsor to cover this if we have to pick it up every year", so next Summer's fixtures (whether in the Finals, the Additional Qualifying Tournament or [heaven forbid!] the Relegation Tournament) should not be preceded by so much uncertainty.

LUOL DENG CLEARED TO PLAY FOR GREAT BRITAIN

Luol Deng will play for British Basketball this summer after the organisation confirmed that it has reluctantly agreed to meet the demands of the American insurers.

British Basketball is utilising existing resources to meet the insurers demands for extra cover in the event of injury.

British Basketball Performance Director Chris Spice said: "Although no team is completely dependent on one player, we have concluded that this year's key first campaign in Eurobasket Division A would be heavily weakened by the loss of Luol as part of the line-up.

“We see no medical reason why the NBA insurers have demanded this completely new element to Luol's insurance but as their demand came so late and out of the blue, we have had no choice.

“We cannot say how this problem will affect his participation in future years but hope that the American parties will acknowledge the medical situation as we believe it to be and change their demands.

“For 2008, we are convinced that this is the best outcome for British Basketball, is the best use of our funds in the circumstances and highlights our commitment to make Great Britain one of the top basketball nations in the world by 2012."

Luol Deng will shortly rejoin the British camp and declared: "Playing for Great Britain is very important to me and it is an honor to represent my country."

Great Britain open their Division A campaign against Israel on September 3 before playing the Czech Republic at The o2 arena on September 6.