MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian basketball association that runs tournaments for teenagers from the country’s South Sudanese community said that xenophobic attitudes had forced it to cancel its annual December tournament.

The South Sudanese Australian National Basketball Association has been a pipeline for athletes who go on to play in colleges in the United States and even the N.B.A. It said in a statement posted to Facebook on Tuesday that the exaggerated news media coverage of gang violence meant that it had struggled to find stadiums willing to host the league this year.

“Stadium managers are afraid to host our event because of the African gang stories they see in the news,” the statement read.

In recent years, isolated incidents of violence among South Sudanese youth in Melbourne have received wide attention in the news media, which some critics say has fueled panic and racist attitudes. Some politicians have also stoked fears of so-called African gangs. And while there have been criminal incidents involving young people with South Sudanese backgrounds, the majority of crimes in the state of Victoria are committed by people born in Australia, government figures show.