FIBA and Euroleague, a meeting but no progress

At the time of the 2022 review, FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis confirmed that he had met with the new Euroleague President, Dejan Bodiroga. He admitted that no significant progress has been made in the FIBA – Euroleague discussions at the moment.

This Monday, FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis held his annual video press conference. As is often the case, questions from journalists quickly turned to the issue of relations between FIBA and Euroleague, and more specifically with the new management of the latter. The Greek executive of the international federation confirmed that it had met with the new Euroleague president, Dejan Bodiroga, without noting any major progress.

“I can confirm that we met. It was a good meeting, but at this point we haven’t moved forward. The atmosphere is good. There is also a feeling that FIBA is open to discussion but we have been making efforts alone for 18 months. We have included the NBA in the discussion, we have changed the dates of the November windows to accommodate national teams and players. However, on the other side, we have only seen a few games rescheduled. We are pleased with these changes and I want to thank everyone who made them possible. At the moment in the Euroleague there is a clear majority and a minority in the decision making process. We don’t expect anything to change for the next window in February. We have included everyone involved in our meetings, including the NBA, and we are still waiting for progress,” he said.

FIBA is thus dependent on unity within the Euroleague itself, without which it will not be able to provide a concrete response to the current problems, particularly in terms of scheduling.

“What we need is alignment in strategic goals. So we need to know what these elite clubs want and see if it is compatible with what the other hundreds and thousands of clubs, leagues and federations want. I’m sure the new Euroleague leadership is trying to understand what these clubs that own the ECA want to do. The second step is to see how those plans fit with what we want to do. However, for very important issues like scheduling, there has to be a minimum agreement and that is easy. For example, there could be games on Tuesday and then have openings for windows. There are simple and quick solutions and I am really worried when I read that Euroleague games can change their schedule because of the World Cup for audience reasons and there is no change for FIBA windows,” lamented Andreas Zagklis.

Photo : Andreas Zagklis (FIBA)