A team in top Lithuanian League goes bankrupt mid-season / News - Basketnews.com

Gargzdai, a team in the Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL), went bankrupt mid-season and has been kicked out of the league. The club's debts were much more significant than initially reported, and the local municipality couldn't take the burden to save the organization.

Credit: LKL Credit LKL

Lithuanian basketball is in a crisis at the end of January.

The Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) announced that a team - Gargzdai - has been kicked out of the league due to the organization's inability to pay salaries to its players and the administrative staff.

The local Klaipeda municipality held a special meeting on Monday in hopes of saving the club, but its debts were much bigger than the club's owner, Ovidijus Jakubaitis, initially reported. With the debts reaching 258,000 euros, a burden determined too big for the local government, the city of Klaipeda refused to take over the club.

Interestingly, the club's debts have been a problem since the last season, but the league's licensing system didn't catch them because the process was done before the end of the last season when the debts weren't there.

As the debts accrued during the last months of the 2022-23 season, the owner later promised the league they would be taken care of. However, as time has shown, it wasn't the case.

It is already the second club going bankrupt in the LKL in the last two seasons after a club from Prienai had to close due to crippling debts in 2023.

The LKL has received harsh criticism for its desire to have 12 teams in the league, with the opponents arguing that the local economies cannot sustain this number of professional clubs in the country.

All remaining teams in the LKL will get their wins and losses against Gargzdai removed.

The LKL held a special press conference on Wednesday, where the league's representatives answered questions about the situation. Despite the club's collapse, the league's director, Rasa Liuimiene, said the league's licensing system works.

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