BEKO PBL clubs give priority to Russian championship
BEKO PBL board meeting took place in Moscow today, it was attended by managers of all 10 clubs and President of Russian Basketball Federation Aleksander Krasnenkov. The future of possible unification between BEKO PBL and VTB United League has been discussed. General director of VTB United League Andrey Shirokov had been invited, but he refused to attend the meeting having notified the Board with an official letter.
After the decision of Euroleague it became necessary to structure the system of European competitions. Therefore the clubs have announced their desire to participate in the possible unification process of BEKO PBL and VTB United League. VTB United League’s idea of extending Russian championship via involving foreign clubs would create new marketing opportunities. However the members of the Board admitted that current options that had been proposed by VTB United League are not yet concrete and do not solve a number of important issues.
Aleksander Krasnenkov mentioned that BEKO PBL has done a huge amount of work, the tournament has become interesting and is popular amongst the fans. Yet again the Federation has declared its confidence in BEKO PBL as a host of Russian championship and has expressed his hope that the work on making the championship better won’t stop. Krasnenkov hopes, that BEKO PBL clubs understand the importance of Russian championship priority in order to develop Russian basketball.
In their turn the BEKO PBL clubs have underlined the priority of the national championship and expressed their desire to save the current relationships with with Euroleague and ULEB. Furthermore the clubs want to stay in the frames of the current deal with RBF and to extend the number of teams in the League. The following order to explore the possibilities of increasing the number of clubs has been given to the League’s management.
As a possible solution of the issue heads of BEKO PBL clubs consider entry of the VTB United League into the membership of BEKO PBL. It would allow the unified tournament to solve the majority of controversial issues in shot terms including: saving status in ULEB, fitting into the new system of European competitions, helding so-called Open Russian championship and saving current contract with the RBF. Besides, the abilities of the VTB United League would allow the new tournament to optimize financial expenses and to improve the situation with broadcasting Russian basketball on national TV. The clubs have expressed hope that this option would meet support amongst all the sides.
