By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos and Obradovic want to have a mutual future, but there isn’t a signed contract yet. The meeting between representatives of the team – not owners Pavlos and Thanasis Giannakopoulos – and the Serbian coach lasted 2,5 hours, but in the end the only decision was for the two sides to meet again next Monday.
Zoc and his assistant Dimitris Itoudis are leaving on Tuesday for Dubai – they are speakers in a coaching clinic – and they will be back in Athens after the weekend. In the meantime Zeljko Obradovic will have the time to study the final proposal of Panathinaikos. He was presented with a three season plan. That also means that his contract will be three season long and he will also get 25% of the team ownership, a honorary gesture from Giannakopoulos family towards him.
The thorn in the negotiations seems to be something else. Zeljko Obradovic insists that he needs a budget of 16 million euros in order to execute his plan and build a new competitive team, but Giannakopoulos family can provide 12 million euros. That’s a big gap and we will see if it can be closed in the following days.