By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
With the Russian teams suspended for the foreseeable future from all sports competitions, CSKA Moscow informed all the EuroLeague shareholders by sending a formal letter about their intention to compete next season in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
While all other Russian clubs are not expected to be part of any European competition next season, the case of CSKA Moscow is peculiar. CSKA Moscow is also part-owner of the competition and even if due to international sanctions on Russia, they are not able to compete on the court, they will remain part of the EuroLeague board.
It was already reported that EuroLeague was seeking legal reasons to remove CSKA’s license from the competition. However, at this point, there’s no legal formula that can be used by the competition and totally cut their ties with CSKA Moscow.
The only provision that’s included in the licenses has to do with the possibility of one club wanting to leave the competition and not vice-versa.
This creates one more issue that will be central in the meeting that is expected to be held during this week’s EuroLeague final four in Belgrade. In theory, CSKA Moscow is ready to compete by bypassing the flight limitations which are imposed on Russia, using Istanbul or Belgrade as stopovers. And there’s also a far-fetched scenario at the point of CSKA using Belgrade as their home court.