By Stefan Djordjevic/ info@eurohoops.net
VTB General Director Ilona Korstin confirmed that there is an agreement in principle that the competition will keep a guaranteed spot in Turkish Airlines EuroLeague apart from the one CSKA Moscow holds as an A license club.
However, opinions about EuroLeague’s decision vary among the VTB League teams. As they do among Unics Kazan and Lokomotiv Kuban.
Unics is against it and gives Zenit St. Petersburg getting the wildcard this year in front of them as an example:
“This is a very complicated scheme,” Yevgeny Bogachev, president of UNICS, told Izvestia. “I fully support the position of ULEB and ACB. If the Euroleague itself determines the participants of the tournament, regardless of the results of the national championships, we lose the sports principle. And this is the most important thing in sports in general, and basketball in particular. It all comes down to simple commerce. Even look at this year. UNICS took the third place, and Zenit – the fourth. But the wildcard was given to St. Petersburg. This is not entirely fair.”
On the other side, the president of Lokomotiv Kuban, Andrei Vedischev, said that changing the licensing model isn’t the worst situation for his club:
“The principle itself is clear. With a high degree of probability, the finalist and winner of the Eurocup 2019-20 will be eligible to play in Euroleague. For us, this is not the worst scenario, given that every year we set ourselves the task of winning the tournament. We will form a competitive team that will definitely not be weaker than last season and will compete for trophies. Yes, now we have only one newcomer (Will Cummings), but for the time being, we cannot compete for players with Euroleague clubs that are very active in the market. Therefore, fans need a little patience.”
Vedischev also said that it was Lokomotiv Kuban that was in favor of the idea of maintaining a spot in the Euroleague for the team, which was the main discovery of the season:
“In 2016 we raised this topic. Back then, Loko reached the Euroleague Final Four but didn’t take part in the next draw. Unfortunately, such a rule at the time was not in the regulations. Now it is, and it seems to me that this is how it should be.”