Darussafaka Chief Executive Officer: FIBA officially invited Darüşşafaka Tekfen to the BCL

Darussafaka Chief Executive Officer Cem Ugur Yelkalan: «FIBA officially invited Darüşşafaka Tekfen to the Basketball Champions League. Good teams play in the FIBA ​​Champions League. The offer and terms of FIBA ​​are very good. It’s long-term and more basketball-oriented. Its parameters are stronger in order to sustain basketball. We will decide next week. We want to declare this decision at the beginning of June».

«FIBA has allocated one level more budget than EuroLeague. Basketball is not like football in terms of economy. It has very low income. It is a little more to spends. This is not very easy for clubs. This move of FIBA ​​makes sense. It gives a lot of money to clubs».

About Virtus Bologna game: «It was clear that the Italian team could not come to Istanbul. At that time, there was a serious health problem in Italy, and we, as the country, stopped all our travels with Italy. We have reported to the EuroCup that we do not want to be in danger. We applied to the EuroCup and asked for the match to be played in Berlin the following week. Unfortunately, the EuroCup said that the match will be played in Belgrade 22 hours before. At least 3 players of the Segafredo Virtus Bologna team are Serbs and they grew up in that hall. Djordjevic, the former head coach of the Serbian National Team, is also at the head of Virtus Bologna. It was like going home for them. During the match, the owner of the arena was with me and said to me, ‘Virtus Bologna came to another country, but it’s like our team. They all speak Serbian, ‘he said. The EuroCup did not accept any of our requests, it did not even negotiate. We had to rent a private plane. And because we were the host, we paid all the expenses. We think that this process is not managed well. In this process, we were disappointed. It is certain that all this will affect our decision. Our fans reacted greatly. In this process, we think they treated us unfairly».