EuroLeague Health & Safety Protocols and Special Regulations for 2021-22 season announced

Euroleague Basketball, in consultation with team doctors and medical experts, conducted a thorough review of the Health & Safety Protocols and Special Regulations from last season, making the appropriate changes and updates for the 2021-22 season in both the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and the 7DAYS EuroCup.

The Health & Safety Protocols, which aim at providing competition participants and all other stakeholders with minimum standards to be applied in every EuroLeague and EuroCup game, establish conditions to protect every individual’s health as well as that of their families under the current COVID-19 environment. The protocols have been developed in coordination with league and club doctors and have been consulted with all 38 clubs. They have been constructed to reflect the experience gained by other major international and domestic sports competition organizers. The details, among others, include:

– Basic hygiene rules of conduct: hands washing, social distancing, face mask usage and ventilation.

– Arena and practice facility guidelines establishing a maximum number of individuals in the playing court and locker room areas.

– Appointment of a COVID-19 manager in each club, educational sessions, recommended daily health monitoring, medical assessment forms.

– Players, coaching staff and referees to perform a PCR test three days ahead of every game (two days for home games) and a post-game test, with the exception of individuals who have been vaccinated or previously tested positive for COVID-19 and subsequently received medical clearance, with protocols to follow in the case of a positive PCR test result.

– Guidelines for hotels, transportation, referees, TV production, media and spectators.

The Health & Safety Protocols document is fluid and will be regularly reviewed and adapted to any potential evolution of the current situation.

The Special Regulations are set to maintain the regularity of the competitions as much as possible in order to deliver on the commitments to fans and commercial partners, and to protect all clubs by establishing a clear and equal framework to be applied to all of them in the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their content is the result of continuous communication and alignment of standards with other major European sports competition organizers. The Special Regulations, to be included in the 2021-22 competition bylaws (EuroLeague, EuroCup), include, among others:

No games will be rescheduled to be played after the following deadlines as long as there are available dates:

• EuroCup Regular Season: 12 April 2022

• EuroLeague Regular Season: 14 April 2022

• EuroLeague Playoffs: 6 May 2022

. Games that are precluded from taking place as scheduled due to new or existing restrictions being imposed on home or visiting clubs by their domestic authorities will be suspended and rescheduled. In such cases, the game may be relocated to an alternative venue, if necessary.

. Games that are precluded from taking place as scheduled due to a team having less than eight players on the Authorisation List fit to play, due to one or more players having tested positive for COVID-19 will be suspended and rescheduled.

. Any particular Regular Season game may be suspended a maximum of three times.

. In the event that no dates are available to reschedule a game or the maximum number of reschedules is exhausted, the team whose circumstances originated the initial rescheduling of the game will forfeit the game by the result of zero to twenty (0-20).

. Euroleague Basketball will cooperate with the home club to relocate any games to a suitable alternative arena that has been previously approved for the EuroLeague or EuroCup competition.

. Any club refusing to play without any official national or local restrictions being in place (without any justified cause) will register a 0-20 loss on the first occasion, and the disqualification from the competition on the second, as per existing competition regulations.

. In the event of a season suspension, the provisional standings in place when the suspension occurred may be considered final either to resume the competition or for teams to progress to a potential next phase. If necessary, teams will play any remaining/postponed games to ensure number of games played is balanced among all teams in the same group.

The Company will keep an updated list of existing authorities’ restrictions and approved available arenas at the disposal of all clubs, based on the information provided by these.