By Cesare Milanti / info@Eurohoops.net
MALAGA, Spain – Following an exciting first day on the court of the Martin Carpena with Telekom Baskets Bonn and Hapoel Jerusalem respectively kicking out the host of Unicaja Malaga and Lenovo Tenerife, on the eve of the last day of the 2023 Basketball Champions League Final Four the CEO Patrick Comninos spoke to the media in the traditional press conference.
He highlighted the rumor of BCL and EuroCup joining forces in the near future. “What I will say is that we have a very open dialogue with the new management of the EuroLeague, always with the view of fighting for the ultimate solution to find the right way to make European basketball grow. We are sitting around the table looking at a number of topics, not only EuroCup and BCL. We hope we will be able to share a lot of information, and not just respond to rumors. There’s a lot of room for improvement, and also confusion and uncertainty. We are aligned in this direction in creating an environment that creates excitement. It’s no surprise that we require better structure and clarity for our competition, we need to safeguard the strength of the domestic leagues. One of our key missions is to bring investment to basketball. Nobody invests in a sports team that doesn’t have the opportunity of winning titles”, Patrick Comninos said.
“Ke knew even before the game started that we had the most competitive BCL Final Four ever. two teams that are in the top 5 of the ACB and that fight in the Copa del Rey. Bonn is a great success story both in the BCL, where they have been dominant, but also in the BBL, where they finish at the top. And then we have Hapoel Jerusalem, a tradition of a powerhouse in European basketball. Yesterday’s semifinals demonstrate this high level of competitiveness”, he added about the level of the four participants.
He went on to talk about the several refunds given to the teams who are playing at the highest level of the BCL. “At the end of the day, we are in a competitive environment, where everybody should benefit financially. What we are providing to all the teams is important to cover all the expenses. It should always be the icing on the cake, an important and pleasurable experience. The teams that lift the trophy should obviously be rewarded significantly more”, Comninos added.
Explaining the reason why the competition decided to come back to the usual format of playing at the home of one of the four Final Four teams following 2022 in Bilbao, he was very clear. “Before the final last year, I demonstrated our commitment towards playing in Bilbao and organize a Final Four there. A neutral venue has always been our strategic outlook, but we are not going to a neutral venue just for the sake of it. This year, for a number of reasons, we had many opportunities to go to a neutral venue, but none of them satisfied us. We examined the opportunity to go to one of our participants, and we are extremely pleased to be in a region that is organizing tremendous sports events. That’s the level of guarantee that we look forward to when we are organizing an event. Our intention is to continue to pursue a neutral venue. If we find the right partners, we will examine the opportunity of going to a neutral venue”, the Basketball Champions League CEO added.
“The number of teams from each country will be decided in the next few weeks. We have a board meeting at the end of June that will validate this. It’s a combination of the ranking and the interest from the various territory. This year, we had 18 different countries represented in the Regular Season of the Basketball Champions League, almost 30 including the qualification rounds. We will start immediately the planning for the 2023-24 season after the Final Four”, he spoke about the number of teams participating from countries.
He also pointed out the gladness of having organized the Youth BCL. “It’s true that we had great success in Bursa with the Youth BCL, a competition which was requested by a lot of teams. We had 10 teams entering the competition, this is part of the strategic vision of the Basketball Champions League. We want it to continue growing. At present, we are still only inviting the youth teams of the BCL clubs, but our goal is to reserve a place for the champions of the respective champions. We are trying to find the right balance to maintain a high level in the competition”, Patrick Comninos stated.
You can watch the whole press conference with the 2023 Basketball Champions League CEO Patrick Comninos on the eve of the last day of the Final Four here below.
PHOTO CREDIT: Basketball Champions League