The meeting on Tuesday between FIBA and the Euroleague "ended with a favorable climate for negotiation," according to Nacho Duque of MARCA. Euroleague said in a statement on behalf of the clubs that it "appreciated FIBA's time and effort creating the proposal and guaranteed that it would consider the proposed competition." It emerged, however, that the model offered by FIBA "is not the only way to look for the cooperation, unity and growth of European basketball." Euroleague clubs will "make a counterproposal" with which they hope to obtain more than the €30M ($32.7M) per year that FIBA is guaranteeing. The clubs "also believe that they have showed their administrative capacity during their 15 years running Europe's top league." In the model proposed by FIBA, the league's ownership and management would be "split equally" between FIBA and the clubs, "which are looking to have more power." The Euroleague "expressed its concern" about matters that "could be thorny:" the relationships between the clubs and the national federations, the windows for int'l games, insurance for players and compensation to clubs for releasing players for int'l games. Euroleague clubs will meet next week at the league's HQ (MARCA, 11/5).
FIBA'S PITCH: FIBA blogger David Hein wrote social media is full of comments about how a 16-team Champions League would be a disaster, cutting the field from the 24 teams in the current Euroleague regular season. Complaints also arose about having only four spots in the 16-team field truly up for grabs -- with eight clubs (at the moment, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Anadolu Efes, Fenerbahce, Maccabi Tel Aviv and CSKA Moscow) already in as well as the league champions from France, Germany, Italy and Lithuania. FIBA's new Champions League would resolve many of the issues which have already surfaced or will be in the coming years -- some of them created by FIBA. Financial Fair Play was something Euroleague was just in the process of incorporating and this new competition will feature those same fair play principles. It will be a lot easier to make clubs adhere to them in this case because organizers can kick out those clubs that do not, knowing that plenty of other teams would like to play in the Champions League. The new FIBA calendar with national team windows was also a hotly-debated topic and the Champions League will include windows integrated into the schedule. The limited number of teams in the competition could also make it easier for organizers to create new higher standards -- such as minimum capacity and other criteria for arenas (FIBA).
