Jordi Bertomeu: 'Our intention is to allocate two wildcards to replace Russian clubs' / News - Basketnews.com

Credit: Rodolfo Molina/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images Credit Rodolfo Molina/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images

EuroLeague CEO Jordi Bertomeu met with the media representatives in a press conference where he covered Serbian teams and the EuroLeague future, the competition's goals, and many more.

Free throws this season

73%11,8Points made:11,8Accuracy:73,2%Place in standings:10Record max:24Record min:2Most made FTs:Jordan LoydTeamEuroLeagueStatisticsSchedule

"We managed to grow in all areas, we came back to the pre-Covid levels in revenue. We predict 12% in finance growth," Bertomeu began his opening statement. "In all 3 years when we had all those problems, we continued to grow our fanbase. The interest in EuroLeague from 2018 until now grew by 22 percent."

Bertomeu also revealed that the odds of seeing the Russian clubs in the 2022-23 season are very unlikely.

"I'm not ignoring that we are in challenging times. We'll see how we need to solve the situation in EuroLeague in terms of the war in Ukraine," Bertomeu said. "I hope it will be sorted soon because we need to prepare for next season."

"For all those reasons, we need to solve the problems. I can anticipate that it's difficult to see how Russian teams will participate in the competition next season.

If that's the case, our intention is to allocate two 1-year wildcards to replace Russian teams. Russian teams won't be available to participate. If that's the case, our intention is to propose EuroLeague teams the same format as the current one," he added.

Another goal Bertomeu mentioned is the clubs' sustainability while at the same time emphasizing the most important markets.

"We know how important it is to keep working for the future, and we'll introduce changes.

Our focus is on improving the competition and making clubs more sustainable. We need to grow the business side, and in a reasonable time, maybe for the 2024-25 season, we would like to have a completed roster of teams.

We need to work on which markets we want to have teams and how we can grow basketball and improve the business side. The sooner it is done, the better. Markets like France, Germany are very important, and we can't forget the UK as well. There's also Italy, where we can grow our business and our fanbase.

We believe that to make the clubs sustainable, we need to increase the effort of generating more revenue and control the costs. The league management position desperately needs investments to improve the ecosystem and digital area.

We need to be more active in the previously mentioned markets. Having clubs there helps. Investment is needed. It's a process we need to start as soon as possible," Bertomeu gave a detailed comment.

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