By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
The French League recently announced its plan to complete the season with quarterfinals followed by a Final Four (June 24-26). However, the players seem to disagree with that decision and the French Players Association will for a strike.
“We can say that it’s dead, like the players who are still competing,” the union president Amara Sy said, per L’Equipe, and added. “We have made compromises but here we have no more gas.”
This decision to boycott the quarterfinals (knock-out format, June 20-21) was taken after consultation with the players of the ten clubs still in a position to play in the final phase (Dijon, Asvel, Monaco, Strasbourg, Bourg-en-Bresse, Boulogne-Levallois, Orléans, Le Mans, Limoges, Nanterre). According to Sy, an overwhelming majority voted in favor of boycotting the postseason, with only two votes against.
The dissatisfaction of the players came due to the extremely packed schedule after the French league returned from a hiatus due to the coronavirus. The teams have been playing every two or three days constantly since late April and there are still two more rounds until the end of the regular season, with a few teams having even more games than that remaining.
The players would have at most a week between the end of the regular season and the quarterfinals with many teams having less than that.