Bogdan Tanjevic on EuroLeague: “Maybe they should tell us with which hand to shoot?”

Former head coach and current Technical Director in the Italian national team, Bogdan Tanjevic, discussed the ‘clash’ between EuroLeague and FIBA, the “Windows”, national championships, and their ramifications on the sport.

He didn’t have a lot of nice words for EuroLeague, but he was especially explicit when asked about Jordi Bertomeu:

“Imagine, they are giving a proposal according to which we should consider their plans, not schedule too many games in a championship?! All that’s left is for them to tell us with which hand to shoot the ball under the basket, left or right like they invented basketball. And now he’s got coaches on his side when you read a statement, it’s usually against FIBA and to his benefit. Overall, it looks to me like politicians ruling the world.”, Tanjevic said to Sportski Zurnal.

First, he mentioned the bad sides of a closed-type competition: “Those closed type competitions in our system, EuroLeague, placements by contracts, are ridiculous. It’s because closing destroys the competitiveness in national championships. For example, Venezia (Umana Reyer Venezia), although the Italian champion, can’t show up in a competition like that.”He is primarily on FIBA’s side regarding the Qualification windows: “I would love it if they could find an agreement to at least play the windows normally, and not EuroLeague scheduling 28 games more every season… They should decrease the number of games and leave time for the windows.”