League's Board Discuss Future Of United Competition
One of the main issues of the meeting was possible creation of a united competition with VTB-League, which would meet the requirements of the Euroleague.
General director of VTB-League Andrey Shirokov had a word during the meeting, and he shared his views on the possible creation of a united compettion. Shirokov declared that VTB-League isn't yet ready to propose BEKO PBL a structured possible system, since there are some unsolved issues. One of the most noticable ones is the fact that foreign clubs would have to escape local championships. The negotiations on these issues are ongoing, but neither local federations, none the clubs do have a clear position.
Executive dircetor of Russian Basketball Federation Natalia Galkina also attended the meeting and mentioned that RBF is closely following the situation and first of all would like to have a strong local championships, which would satisfy the interests of all of the BEKO PBL clubs. Galkina added that RBF will anyway follow the contract between her organization and BEKO PBL.
During the following discussion the members of the board mentioned that united competition is an interesting project, but would be possible only with these requirements met:
- high-class Euroleague foreign clubs stay in the competition;
- interests of local federations taking into consideration;
- interests of all 10 clubs of the BEKO PBL and all possible Russian additions are met;
- qualification for Euroleague and Eurocup via this new competition is cleared. At clubs qualify for European competitions via BEKO PBL.
Therefore the clubs, having a positive opinion about a new project, agree that the current project of a united competition cannot be used due to non-compliance to international regualtions. BEKO PBL remains open for new proposals and is ready to take part in the process of unification.
