The Spanish Basketball League's (ACB) General Assembly decided on Monday to accept the Euroleague's proposal for int'l competition, "but will allow Spanish clubs to participate in the FIBA Champions League," according to the EFE. ACB President Francisco Roca announced that club representatives "agreed to accept the Euroleague model." Currently, License A holders Real Madrid, Barcelona and Laboral Kutxa have guaranteed access to the Euroleague. Under the new proposal, the best ACB non-License A team will also be granted access to the competition. The ACB "will also receive three direct-access places in the Eurocup for the following three best clubs." The agreement will be for four years, through the '19-20 season. The ACB did announce that "it will allow the participation of its teams in the FIBA Champions League" (EFE, 4/4).
FIBA FILES COMPLAINT: FIBA on Tuesday confirmed it had filed a complaint to the European Commission against Euroleague Properties SA, a subsidiary of Euroleague Commercial Assets. Recent events have shown that a complaint filed by ECA against FIBA was only serving as a smokescreen to mask its own anti-competitive behavior, which includes:
- Abusive tying by imposing undue pressure on leagues and clubs, as well as threatening exclusion from Euroleague unless they commit to Eurocup. Such practices were applied in the case of the Adriatic League and other European leagues.
- A "syndication agreement" circulated among the 11 A license clubs who hold the majority of votes in ECA, meaning that six clubs control ECA, including all Euroleague and Eurocup decisions in sporting and commercial matters.
- Arbitrarily cherry-picking clubs for Euroleague and Eurocup, which means destroying any commercial and sporting value of domestic leagues and undermining the competitive balance in European basketball.
- Abusively discriminating against financially weaker clubs, thereby placing them at a further competitive disadvantage.
In essence, ECA wishes to reap the benefits of the basketball ecosystem developed by national federations (players, coaches, referees, thousands of other clubs) without contributing to the foundations of the sport’s pyramid (
FIBA).
