By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
The new season is about to start and Jordi Bertomeu once again confirmed that Euroleague is about to change. In an interview published in Euroleague’s official website, the CEO of the league spoke about Financial Fairplay and the pyramid like system which will replace the current licenses system.
As he said: “The main objective is the same as it was when Euroleague Basketball was created: to become a true European league. We have adopted several changes in the competition’s structure over these years, and all of them were consistent with this objective. More games in the most important parts of the season and greater integration between the Euroleague and the Eurocup. Now we have agreed with clubs and leagues to move to the ultimate structure of the league, which should form a pyramid, with the Euroleague at the top, followed by the Eurocup and the domestic leagues, and is based on the promotion and relegation between them. Basically, we would take the classic league model that works in every country and most sports to an international level. Even though a consensus has been reached on the concept, details are not yet defined. This season we will dedicate lots of effort to defining this and presenting a more detailed proposal to the clubs and the leagues. In a transition to this model, we will have some modifications for the 2015-16 season, which will basically affect the license allocation criteria.”
Bertomeu admitted that the license system is proved to be problematic for anyone who didn’t had an A license: “We believe the current structure was too complicated for fans to understand and in some cases also problematic for our clubs. The dynamic country system, although it served to increase the number of countries that got opportunities to participate in our competitions, was confusing sometimes for the fans to understand which teams would qualify for the Euroleague, since in some cases that depended on what happened in leagues from other countries. This was not good, and so we decided to find a solution that simplified it.”
Still the “ultimate league structure” doesn’t have yet a defined timeframe, even if the idea seems to be simple: “The first teams from the Eurocup will be promoted to the Euroleague, and the last teams in the Euroleague will be relegated to the Eurocup, and the same will happen between domestic leagues and the Eurocup. This is a system that works and has been working in every country for decades, so it will be very easy to implement in terms of fans understanding it. On the other end, after two seasons adjusting to the Financial Fair Play rules that were approved, next year – for the 2015-16 season – these rules will be enforced, which will progressively provide greater uniformity”.