“We’re here to stay”: BCL’s past, present and future in an exclusive interview with Patrick Comninos

“We’re here to stay”: BCL’s past, present and future in an exclusive interview with Patrick Comninos

Basketball Champions League’s CEO has spoken at length about the current affairs of the FIBA-run competition, its first four seasons and its future.

Could you explain the process with which you choose the clubs you propose a multi-year agreement to be part of BCL?

This is something that has been of structural relevance to the BCL, when we try to link the sporting results with the level of certainty all clubs wish to have. One of the first observations that I made when I entered my position, was that so many GM and Sporting Directors around Europe were telling me that they could only plan until June: “We have no idea what will going to happen beyond that (…) We have no idea which competitions we will be playing (…) We have no idea what our budget will be”.

To me this was dangerous in order to develop clubs’ viability and sustainability. When I said at the beginning that we try to propose a new model, what we’re trying to do is maintain our core principle -Sporting Results is the only aspect that matters in the Basketball Champions League- and combining this with the necessary certainty that clubs require.

In an ideal world, agreements would be made directly with the Leagues, as far as the Leagues were able to guarantee to us the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd position in the ranking, then we would know that we’d be in a position to have the best performers. Unfortunately, the current structure of European Basketball does not allow this. Inevitably, we have to go to establish direct agreements with certain clubs, and these are long-term agreements made to provide each side with certainty and stability.

The clubs now knows that as long as they performs at the highest level in their domestic competition, they will always have a place in the Basketball Champions League. And on our side we know that if these clubs perform well, they will always choose BCL as the competition in which they participate. It is a mutually beneficial agreement, that allows both sides to have long-term plans. A lot of discussions have been made on this topic, but it is nothing new: we have had this agreement with Bamberg now for three seasons, so it’s nothing entirely new and it is linked to the clubs performing well domestically.

What does happen if a team on an agreement does not comply with the sporting criteria in one of the seasons? Does this team have its agreement ‘on hold’ or the season is considered as ‘lost’?

This is a point that enters into the core of each different agreement, and not all agreements are similar. Based on the depth of each League, there is a baseline of results which must be kept by clubs to participate in BCL.

The bottom line is that if one year the club does not perform well, they won’t be in a position to participate in BCL and that year is included in the agreement, which does not automatically extend.

Read more: Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7

Post your comment