Chaos in Greek basketball
A crucial top-level meeting between rival local basketball authorities aimed at finding solutions to a series of unresolved issues – most stemming from a draft sports bill aimed at eradicating corruption from Greek sports – was postponed yesterday after one of the key participants, Giorgos Vassilakopoulos, the head of EOK, Greece’s basketball federation, was obliged to attend another meeting in Stuttgart to discuss details concerning the Champions Cup. This is a new European club-level competition to be introduced this season by FIBA Europe, basketball’s governing body for the continent. Vassilakopoulos also holds the post of president of FIBA Europe. Yesterday’s postponed meeting – tomorrow has been set as the new date – was supposed to bring round the negotiating table Vassilakopoulos, the national basketball league’s association of professional basketball clubs, ESAKE, and government officials. In recent months, ESAKE has threatened to walk out and effectively stall competition in reaction to a draft sports bill whose details include a clause that would demand letters of credit from the national league’s 14 clubs, worth the full amounts of their respective annual budgets as a safeguard for each team’s financial stability. Late last month, Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos met with ESAKE and promised to reduce the amount to 10 percent. Vassilakopoulos has sided with the government over its efforts to revise regulations. Besides the dispute over the amounts to be specified in letters of credit by clubs, a host of other issues need to be ironed out, including the degree to which clubs will be held accountable for property damage caused by violent fans. Also, the negotiating sides need to reach a solution on a final list of referees for the national league’s new season. The range of pending issues have severely disrupted the preseason preparations of clubs, including negotiations of transfer deals. Another more distant battlefront smoking for Greek clubs is that of European club-level competition. A little over two weeks ago, Vassilakopoulos announced FIBA’s new Champions Cup, which, as was the case two seasons ago, threatens to splinter top-level European competition into two leagues. ULEB, the association of European professional basketball clubs, had broken away with its own league two years ago over broadcasting rights. The breakaway teams were lured back to FIBA last year, and as a compromise, ULEB was awarded the organization of the Euroleague. But during his presentation of the upcoming season’s Champions Cup – a multilayered setup of an elite Golden Group and regional subordinate leagues – Vassilakopoulos described ULEB as dark, hollow, and rotten.
