By Yiannis Bouranis/ info@eurohoops.net
FIBA fights back and continues its plans for the Champions League, which will take place next year, concurrently with the Euroleague.
According to basketblog.gr, FIBA’s plan didn’t buckle from Euroleague’s agreement with the 11 clubs to create the competition’s new version, which will start next year.
With the national leagues being FIBA’s allies, the world federation will try to “build” the championship with their help. The main difference between the two competitions is the number of the teams that will participate in each league (16 clubs will take part in the new Euroleague, with 30 rounds in the regular season, whereas 32 teams will be part of the Champions League, with 14+6 rounds in the two phases until the Top-8).
Here is the plan of the world basketball federation:
-A public limited company will be founded, which will be subject to the Swiss Law, will not have a major shareholder and will give the leagues the right to reject any decision made.
-The share status of the company will have FIBA as a shareholder at 50% and the leagues in the remaining 50%, which will be distributed as follows: Each of the eight most powerful leagues (Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Russia, Croatia, Serbia and Turkey) will have 5%, while each of the five less powerful ones, namely Belgium, Czech Republic, Israel, Lithuania and Poland, will have 2%.
-Regarding the competition, the 32 clubs will be divided into four groups of eight teams each, while each squad will play 14 games in total. The first four teams in the standings will qualify to the top-16 and the champion will be derived from the final-4. There will also be a preliminary tournament, with two home and two away games, as the status of the wild cards will also apply, however all details will be determined in the next meeting.
-What is interesting, though, is the fact that the two teams that will finish fifth and sixth in the standings will play in a “second competition”, which means there will not be just the champions league. The first prediction about the second competition “says” that there will be 36 teams, which will be divided into two groups of six squads each, with the first four in the standings qualifying to the next phase, where they will join the clubs that will have finished fifth and sixth in the Champions League’s group stage. This competition will come to an end before the final-4 of the Champions League.
-It was also agreed that all matches will take place on Wednesday and Thursday in order to avoid creating problems to the national leagues, which is FIBA’s accusation against the Euroleague.