By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
You have read about the seeds and the proceedings of Euroleague for 2012-13. The next season was considered by Euroleague as a milestone in establishing certain standards for the participation of the teams in the competition. According to what have been decided each team with A license should play in a court at least 10,000 seats capacity.
Even if the regulation has existed for several years, a lot of teams haven’t moved to larger stadium taking essentially a short exception by Euroleague. CSKA Moscow left the small Sports Hall of 5,500 seats and as Andrei Vatutin, the president of the team announced, their Euroleague games will be held in Megasport Arena which holds 13,100 fans. During the past months a lot of teams expanded their courts or decided to build new (eg Caja Laboral, Zalgiris, Fenerbahce/Ulker).
However, there are still three teams despite having a permanent place in the Euroleague courts have yet to over 10,000 posts. Barcelona is reluctant to move to Palau San Jordi, the stadium that hosted the Final Four in 2011. President Sandro Rosel excluded any possibility of building a new gym and Catalans must leave their old beloved Palau Blaugrana. Otherwise, they should ask Euroleague new extension of the… moratorium with the risk of not taking it being visible.
Montepaschi also, left any thoughts about building a new stadium in Siena. So they should move to another city, if they will not get the permission of Euroleague to play in the Palaestra. Finally, Prokom uses Gdynia Sports Arena of 5,000 seats and also there isn’t prospect of removal to a 10,000 seats court.
Α license teams
Panathinaikos 18.000 (OAKA)
Anadolu Efes 16.000 (Sinan Erdem)
Zalgiris 15.600 (Zalgiris Arena)
Caja Laboral 15.300 (Fernando Buesa Arena)
Real Madrid 15.000 (Palacio de Deportes)
Fenerbahce 13.800 (Fenerbahce/Ulker Arena)
CSKA Moscow 13.100 (Megasport Arena)
Emporio Armani Milan 12.000 (Mediolanum Forum)
Maccabi 11.500 (Nokia Arena)
Olympiacos 11.000 (SEF)
Unicaja 11.000 (Martin Carpena)
Barcelona 8.250 (Palau Blaugrana)
Montepaschi 5.070 (Palaestra)
Prokom 5.000 (Gdynia Sports Arena)