By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiejunas talked about the competition shareholders meeting that took place in Istanbul to discuss Maccabi Tel Aviv’s situation, while Israel is at war with Hamas.
Maccabi will temporarily be moving to Belgrade, Serbia to hold its home games. Here’s what Motiejunas said in an interview with the Turkish network S Sport:
“Everything is OK. I think that the key point is that all clubs are aligned. That we want the competition to go. This is obviously what the management wants to do. At the end we found a way out. Maccabi continues to play so I evaluate it as a very successful meeting.
The decision-making process is easy because everybody has to be aligned. The issue is really difficult. Because in each country they have different realities and different circumstances. At the end, everybody came together. Maccabi came up with a proposal to have a neutral place in Serbia. Everybody approved to try it out.
Now we, as the league, we will look at transportation, hotels, security, to make it safe and go according to the plan. The most positive thing is that games continue to happen and Maccabi continues to play.
I know that the municipality [of Belgrade] is involved. There were other options and different countries said they were willing to help. Maccabi was in talks and found this [Belgrade] to be the best option. I’m really thankful to the clubs. Maccabi for this temporal season. Now I think it’s difficult to talk about the full season but at least for these upcoming games, Maccabi has a home where they can play. I’m really thankful to the Serbian government and the municipality of Belgrade in particular.
Because of this unstable situation, we will take it step by step and continue to monitor the situation. Let’s hope for peace, this is what we all want. If it’s safe to get back to Tel Aviv, then this is what’s going to happen. If something unfortunately goes the other way, then we will sit down and evaluate the situation. There’s no way we can solve the situation for the full season because of the uncertainty. We will continue to monitor it, both the league and the club. Let’s hope we can finish the season.”