By Stefan Djordjevic/ info@eurohoops.net
The 2019-20 EuroLeague season was canceled today (May 25) and while it didn’t come as a major surprise, the fact that CEO Jordi Bertomeu tipped off with a suggestion to do so might not have been expected by some.
Zalgiris GM Paulius Motiejunas was a bit taken by it and noted, per lrytas.lt, that “there was not even a vote, he said that it should be stopped, so we decided to end the season together.”
He also explained that beforehand, Zalgiris was ready to vote for continuing the competition and also offer to host the final phase: “We wanted to play, we made efforts to organize a tournament in Lithuania. But there are many things we cannot regulate. The Euroleague knows all the cards, so we support them and trust them. We had the whole plan. We knew which cities we would play in, what format. We talked about the quarantine conditions, everything was agreed. We put in the work, we did a lot,” Motiejunas said and added that, while can’t say for certain, he believes the teams would have split the votes if it came to it.
Going forward, the main concern is of the financial kind as the clubs try to calculate their losses and make a plan for the upcoming season. Much will depend on whether there will be fans in the stands.
“The first plan is to calculate exactly how much money both the league and the clubs are losing. We’ll talk to the players again, the market will definitely change, so we’ll see how the team can be formed. The goal is to start in early October. We have forecasts, but we will talk to the agents, we will see what they think. But the biggest issue for us is the budget. We don’t know if we’ll play with fans or not. The income of the club is changing, so we need to see for how much we can buy players.”