By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
Every year, at the last day of Euroleague’s Final Four, Jordi Bertomeu invites few journalists, from all over Europe, for a brunch in order discuss with them every matter of the competition. Eurohoops.net was there and… so are you now!
The first thing Euroleague’s CEO had to say was about a new project they run, together of course with Turkish Airlines and its all about helping the people who are in need, in every community. As he said: “This year we have 8 teams, next season we are going to add 8 more, the same goes for the year after, till we have everybody involved. Thanks to Turkish Airlines, we had the chance to launch the “One team” project” cause the role of sport in society has changed in a way that sport has become one of the important tools in making social changes. As such an important thing in so many people’s lives, many organizations have been using sports to engage with their communities”.
The Deputy General Manager of Turkish Airlines Mr. Faruk Cizmecioglu explained: “One Team is about using basketball to help against the entire arena of exclusions that are present in societies. And we began with Efes’ players going to an autistic children school, to give presents, to take pictures and to discuss with the kids”. In each country, there will be a different solid activity. Every team will choose their project, according to each community’s needs and this year’s teams are Alba Berlin, Real Madrid, Olympiacos, EA7 Milan, Anadolu Efes, Unicaja and CSKA.
After this extremely important project which is all about sports being more than business, Bertomeu was ready to hear our questions. And the first one was about the way Euroleague sells tickets to the public, through its official website during all season. You see, they had another sold out, but there were empty seats at “Sinan Erdem Arena”, from fans who bought them but never got into the arena –after their teams’ failure to qualify to the Final Four. His answer? “We don’t intend to change the ticket distribution system. First, cause its extremely successful and second for security reasons. It’s too risky to go on the open market. And always the fans can do what Olympiacos fans did last year when they managed, through us, to recover tickets and sold them to Maccabi’s fans. The system is the one it its. I love the fans who trust their teams and they take the risk”.
About London… calling Final Fours for the next two years, he explained: “It’s a challenging decision and a good destination for our partners. UK has always been a challenge for us. From the beginning, when we had London Towers. We take the responsibility to make basketball popular and one Final Four is not enough. We need stability to this market, to see how we can activate the huge potentials of this country. They have funs. We see that every time they have an NBA game. After we leaving the second year we expect that something has happened, over there. I repeat, the main reason is to help the growth of the sport in this country”.
Then he was asked if a British team is going to take a wild card. “No, we want the exact opposite. Our plan is to go to countries, where basketball is not so popular, but the potentials of being popular are huge, such as Russia, Germany and UK. Cause if you have to choose, you choose the big ones. Its true we want to give a second chance to UK and we want this country to reach to a point when they will be ready to play first at Eurocup, then at Euroleague’s qualifying rounds and at the end to Euroleague, cause they deserve it”.
When he was asked about the agreement that Euroleague has signed with VTB United League, so the champion will get a spot at Euroleague. He said: “The agreement was about VTB United League having the same criteria with every other league, so the first one can gain something… for being first. Three years now FIBA Europe is not doing anything on this matter, something is not a surprise for us, so in October we stepped in this problem and gave to VTB United League a position. It was a sleeping issue, till we provoke and everybody woke up. The original proposal is for VTB United League to adjust to our structure, for the hall competition to be under the umbrella of Euroleague”.
Then, there was a question about next year’s new schedule, with games on Friday and when we told him 1rst) Maccabi Tel Aviv has the request of not playing on this day (for religious reasons) and 2nd) the Spanish teams have informed that they are not going to play on Friday, cause Liga Endesa refuses to schedule games for Monday (for the obvious reasons), he stated that “they will play the day they will have to play. As for Maccabi, they have played in the past on Fridays for the Final Four and nothing happened. We have to work with everybody to combine things”.
About the Financial Fair Play, he explaind: “We need a stable financial situation and we are ready to fulfill all the commitments to Euroleague. If a team cannot pay the players or compete to a Euroleague level because the players are not getting their money, they affect the league, which has the legitimacy to interfere. In next 3 years, we want to introduce some principles aiming to increase the financial stability of the clubs. The idea is to uniform all the financial criteria that exist in various domestic leagues. Taking into consideration the variety of the aforementioned criteria, the creation of a common basis will increase the stability of the competition by improving administration methods and controlling balance sheets. The crisis will have an impact to our clubs and we cannot help them. The only thing we can do is to establish the framework for a useful environment, the structure to work properly”.
The next question was from the journalist of Russia’s Sport-express web site and it was about the officiating of the games “cause all year long you have complains, with Panathinaikos’ being the last one on the list”. Bertomeu said that “the officiating has become extremely useful for many people, cause it’s their excuse if they lose. The referees make mistakes, the coaches make mistakes, so do players and I make the most of all. In any case, we are always looking for good referees”. And few seconds later, while he was talking about the use of technology in the officiating, he said “we have included technical improvements in our games, always under FIBA’s umbrella. Kostas Rigas in a very important part of this technical commission. Together with FIBA are working on having a more dynamic system, using new technologies”.
About the meeting with FIBA, two weeks ago, at Barcelona he said that “we agree with the idea of having events every four years, instead of two, like football, but we still have our differences about their idea of national teams having games during the season, cause its not realistic. Its about the calendar and its full during the season. Meanwhile, nobody likes breaks. You have to respect the principal of the calendars and we gave alternative solutions. For sure, we will talk again”.
When we got out of the meeting room, we asked him if he is planning on coming to Athens, any time soon; “I think… I am wanted over there, if I read correctly. No, I don’t want to talk about what Thanasis (Giannakopoulos) said (ed.note: the co-owner of Panathinaikos is furious about the refereeing of the semifinal against CSKA Moscow). Of course, I can remember in 2002 at Bologna when he threatened he would take his team and leave before the Final. But can you tell me please, during which period of time Panathinaikos became a dynasty, at European Basketball? When they got 5 trophies, before they reach the 6th one? I don’t have a problem with the family that runs Panathinaikos. On the contrary, I respect them for what they have offer to Euroleague and to European basketball”.