By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Euroleague Basketball’s One Team, the social responsibility program, worked on a project with Crvena Zvezda mts and Partizan NIS in order to refurbish the historical basketball courts at the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade which will be used as a FanZone during the Final Four.
Two full tartan courts and court’s main stone tribune were redeveloped. In the event over the weekend, the newly reformed courts were tried out by children participating in the One Team activities under the guidance of coaches from both clubs.
A lot of respectable people from basketball were attending as special guests including Euroleague Basketball Legend Dusan Ivkovic, Final Four Ambassador Dusko Savanovic, One Team Ambassadors Branko Lazic and Ognjen Dobric of Crvena Zvezda, their teammate Nemanja Dangubic, and Mihajlo Andric of Partizan.
Nebojsa Covic, the Red Star President, was also attending the event and perhaps best explained the historic importance of Kalemegdan courts: “The refurbishment of these courts make this a great day and a great honor for us. This place is so important to the history of Serbian and Yugoslav basketball, where the story started. Also, thanks to the patriarchs of Serbian basketball Radoslav Saper, Nebojsa Popovic, Borislav Stankovic and Aleksandar Nikolic. This is a place where they said we will be the world champions, and we became the world champions, so our basketball has made an indelible mark on European and world basketball history. The fact that the Final Four is in Belgrade, and that the FanZone will be in these courts, is an incentive to keep working.”