Andrei Kirilenko, President of the Russian Basketball Federation, spoke to sports.ru after the last window of the EuroBasket 2022 Qualifiers. Russia hosted the Group B “bubble” in Perm.
These are some of the comments he made:
“I’m in favour of the windows. But, of course, it would be great if the Euroleague issue was resolved. It would be perfect. Why am I talking about the Euroleague? Yet it is the top basketball club tournament on the continent. But if it is interrupted by the windows, the national teams will get players of a higher class, and this will spur interest in the Euroleague itself in the end.
More often you can see the national team – this is the first moment. It got more interesting – it’s great for international basketball. Club history is different. It’s twice as pleasant to root for your team. And in any country, the national team is treated with special love and attention.
There were a lot of different negotiations and at the moment there is a stumbling block – and he is not moving anywhere. FIBA, it seems to me, is open and ready to resolve this slow-moving conflict as soon as possible. But the Euroleague takes a principled position: we are the main club tournament, and all the others should move and take their calendars away. This is not possible because the national federations are the priority. Sorry, I don’t think the problem will be resolved anytime soon.”
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