By Stefan Djordjevic/ info@eurohoops.net
Crvena Zvezda president Nebojsa Covic addressed the recent fine imposed by EuroLeague Basketball, stating that while the club was sanctioned for unresolved past commitments, there aren’t any more debts to players.
“We have evidence and documents from Euroleague that we don’t have any debts and that our business is transparent,” Covic explained in an interview with Serbian Tanjug News Agency.
“I’m sort of glad that information is published so we can end that story,” Covic said about the press release by EuroLeague Basketball. “We never hid that we have debts, but real debts. Not debts to banks, but to players or coaches. I was first to say that this summer. This is a confirmation that we aren’t an ATM machine and that someone just splashes money into this club. We can’t just point a finger and pick the player we want like others say. With selling our players and getting buyouts from the clubs for our players we solved most of our debt.”
Covic described how the club resolved much of its financial problems, mentioning the transfer of Marko Guduric to Fenerbahce as an example.
“The rest of debt should be paid from the money we got from our sponsors and from selling tickets. As well as from the money we got from selling Marko Guduric. This is a confirmation that we are doing a good job here. People don’t know that we have financial controls every six months and if you don’t work by Euroleague’s “Fair play” rules you get sanctions. When it comes to the problem with the Euroleague all this situation started last summer when some conversation was. During the last summer, there were some emotional outburst and inappropriate statements that led to the opening of this process. We had a meeting and four Euroleague’s members participated in that meeting and confirmed it. In that meeting, we presented that the debts to Marko Simonovic, Nemanja Dangubic, Milko Bjelica, Ryan Thomson, Nate Wolters, Charles Jenkins Dejan Radonjic are paid or they are in process of being paid. The be more precise we owe them 450k euros and the second installment of Guduric’s transfer is 500k euros. Everything is done in by the Euroleague’s “Fair Play” rules. Now we have evidence and documents from Euroleague that we don’t have debts to our players and that our business is transparent. After all this, we are just looking to the future and our next changes.”