EuroBasket 2025: Focused on their WNBA careers, Gabby Williams and Dominique Malonga will not be available for the French team

The two players announced their future absence on Sunday, as the French team aims for a first European title since 2009.

Double bad news for the French women's team ahead of Euro 2025 (June 18-29). Team winger and key player Gabby Williams announced on Sunday, May 11, that she would not be participating, and Dominique Malonga, recently selected second overall in the WNBA draft, followed suit a few hours later. The backdrop is a series of constraints related to their careers in the American league.

"It's a personal choice that I didn't take lightly, and I will remain the number one supporter of the French team," Gabby Williams wrote on her social media in the evening. Dominique Malonga spoke of the "context of a special season that is crucial for the rest of [her] career." The two silver medalists from the Paris Olympic Games will play for the same franchise next season, the Seattle Storm.

One of the rules of the collective bargaining agreement for the North American championship - whose regular season runs from mid-May to mid-September - stipulates, for example, that players cannot leave their franchise to take part in an international competition until two weeks before the start of the latter. Les Bleues will begin their preparation on May 18, a month before the start of Eurobasket - against Turkey in Piraeus - and will play four matches between May 25 and June 4 against Turkey and Belgium.

In her message published on Instagram, Dominique Malonga specified that, not being able to "honor each selection in the best possible way" , she preferred to "leave [her] place to those who will be able to do so from preparation to competition" , while thanking her coach and the Federation for their understanding. In April, the staff of the Bleues had nevertheless unveiled a group expanded to 25 players - including Williams and Malonga - for the entire preparation. "We know that we will have to adapt to the constraints linked to the WNBA" , had already mentioned Jean-Aimé Toupane, specifying that "several players involved in this league will have the opportunity to join us as the training courses progress" .

In addition to Williams and Malonga, Marine Johannès, Marième Badiane, Leïla Lacan, Carla Leite, Iliana Rupert, Janelle Salaün, and Migna Touré are also among the many French internationals who will be playing across the Atlantic. Les Bleues are aiming for their first European title since 2009 in this Euro, which will be played across Europe (Italy, Greece, Czech Republic, Germany), and for which they are projected favorites.

In April, on the sidelines of the Euroleague semi-finals played with her other club, Fenerbahçe (Turkey), Gabby Williams had already declared to the AFP that Jean-Aimé Toupane "understood that each [was] in a different situation, depending on their contract and their franchise" . But, she added then, "it must really be complicated for him, I am not envious of his situation (...) It is hard for him and for us. We have contracts to respect and at the same time we really want to win (the Euro) this year" .