By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Mornar Bar counted on participating in the 2020-21 7DAYS EuroCup but the team was left out of the lineup and the club president Djordjie Pavicevic expressed his dissatisfaction with the decision.
Furthermore, Pavicevic signed the club’s statement which criticizes the EuroLeague as well as the ABA League for, above all, giving Cedevita Olimpija a spot instead of Mornar.
The two clubs were tied at the fourth spot before the season in ABA was suspended, one round before the end of the regular phase. And that is where the main issue arose.
Mornar won both times against Cedevita Olimpija which should put them ahead (per ABA League rules, according to Mornar), however, it seems that the “FIBA rule book” was used instead which considers the total accumulative difference, according to which, Cedevita Olimpija would hold the fourth place.
The club’s statement also said that Mornar will reconsider participating in the ABA League while, at the same, sue both ABA and EuroLeague, and ask for reimbursement of all invested funds in the competitive season 2019/20.
The complete statement by Mornar Bar:
Sportsmanlike Bar has received with disbelief the news that BC Mornar will not participate in the Euro Cup in the next season, although it has won that in the sport field.
The BC Partizan, BC Buducnost Voli and BC Cedevita Olimpija will represent ABA league in Euro Cup 2020/21. Persons in BC Mornar are embittered by the behind-the-scenes games that had preceded to such outcome.
The President of BC Mornar Đorđije Pavićević made his voice heard by the announcement in which it is said:
„We are unpleasantly surprised by the Decision of the Board of Euro Cup that BC Mornar will not be the participant in this competition in the season 2020/21 but BC Cedevita Olimpija, nonexistent team of ABA league, for which even the place where it was registered is not known.
Our embitterment by this decision is based on the several facts.
Mr. Đorđi Bartomeu, the president of Euro League, has clearly announced that eight quarterfinalists will play from season Euro Cup in season 2019/20, as direct participants, and other places will be fulfilled on the basis of the placements in National leagues. Since the ABA league represents the National championships of the clubs which form it, it was logically that BC Mornar, as the fourth placed team of ABA league, receives the invitation for Euro Cup.
Because of Corona virus ABA league was interrupted after next to last, 21st round, which was played on 08th March 2020. If there had been a good sense of hearing at the participants of ABA League and the management of the league, the last round would have played and there would be nothing of this unpleasant situation.
In the moment of interruption of the league, BC Mornar was on the fourth place according to the Book of rules of ABA league which says that if the teams have the same number of points, the placement shall be determined by mutual score. And we won Cedevita Olimpija both times, in Bar and in Ljubljana. Somebody has, obviously, used the Rule book of FIBA (null and void in concrete situation!) to determine the current table and push BC Cedevita Olimpija through small door into Euro Cup.
If the BC Mornar in that manner had reached the placement in the Euro Cup, we would have said ‘’thank you’’ for that, and we would have said that we are shame and we would have surrendered the place to that one who has earned it on the basketball field.
The ascertainment of individual public media that Montenegro cannot have two representatives in Euro Cup is not correct. That alibi ascertainment is senseless.
These events have shown that ABA league is not consistently made and that the output of those ones who have organized it, as well as its previous presidents, is on glass legs. The ABA league must be independent and not to depend on others. If we had been organized on time and in good manner, all persons would have appreciated us, and in this way, we satisfy ourselves with the crumbs from the table of the leaders of the Euro League and Euro Cup.
Beside taking into consideration of the appropriateness of further participation in ABA league, we will prepare a team of lawyers which will sue ABA league, and at the same time also the Euro League. We will ask for reimbursement of all invested funds in the competitive season 2019/20, and those funds are not small. So, let’s establish who is to blame for what happened.
Only now is clear what task, really, had the last online Assembly of ABA league. It should have only decided that the championship is not to be continued, despite to the fact that the BC Partizan, BC Buducnost Voli and BC Mornar insisted that the championship is to be finished. The fact that this was performed secretly, became denuded clear after the decision that the nonexistent team of ABA league, BC Cedevita Olimpija, be pushed into the Euro Cup.
Of course, we have no objections to the participation of the BC Partizan and BC Buducnost Voli, on the contrary, they have earned that fairly, on basketball playground and we wish them from our heart to honorably represent ABA league. It cannot be said for BC Cedevita Olimpija.
The question arises: who is protected by ABA league? Is it the team that, five days after the proclamation of the corona virus pandemic, disbanded everything and did not have five players on the list, or the team that, along with Real Madrid, only one, so far, paid all (!) contractual obligations to players, and by May the 10th practically formed the team for the next season?
All this will motivate and urge me as the Vice president of ABA league to, in my presidential mandate, of course, if BC Mornar continues the competition in ABA league, do everything that such and similar situations be regulated by the Book of rules, in order that none team could be damaged and deprived for results achieved on sport field, as well as that previous brokering and lobbing do not be any more a part of ABA league.
This unsportsmanlike move of the management of ABA league, that is the forwarded unfair list to Euro Cup with the participants of that championship from ABA league, where the BC Mornar was obviously referred to the accessory track, on wild card, and afterwards the decision of the Euro Cup that we are not the participants of the second one, according to significance, European championship, will only urge us to be stronger in the next year and to show to the management and to the teams of ABA league that the sports heights can be reached only in sports manner, from which you can, then, look to everybody’s eyes. For such ugly decision it should have had a thick cheek.
And at the end, everybody should be sure, and especially our fans, that we will not allow that the city of basketball, Bar, be forfeited by impersonal people who are, for the purpose of personal interests, ready to push out sport and all its acters from the terrain into the second plan.’’
Đorđije Pavićević,
President of the BC Mornar, Bar