Two decades ago, a revolution in basketball occurred with the creation of the Euroleague, in conflict with the International Federation for its sport. Now it’s football’s turn, as on Monday 12 major clubs announced the creation of the Europa League, which will clash with the UEFA Champions League.
Then many European basketball clubs created a competitive competition and the process is very reminiscent of football at the moment.
Starting in 1958 and following the model launched by football in 1955, the International Basketball Association (FIBA) organized the major European club competition, which has been called first the Champions Cup and then the Euroleague since 1996.
In 2000 there was a first split: clubs like FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, which now participate in the European Super League Soccer, joined with others such as Bolonia, AEK Athens or Olympiakos to “Euroleague Basketball”, a private entity created in July of That year.
The 2000-2001 season was developed by two parallel European competitions, the Euroleague and the Suproliga. The latter was regulated by FIBA.
In 2001 there were two European champions, Kinder Bologna in the Euroleague and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Soprolega.
FIFA and Euroleague Basketball were buried in 2001 for fifteen years, with the Euroleague being the main competition.
The conflict was reignited at the end of 2015, when Euroleague Basketball, for the 2016-2017 season, considered switching to a semi-closed format, with NBA as a model, with eleven “franchises” with a ten-year license.
He managed to attract the most important European clubs despite threats to be excluded from the International Basketball Federation.
Two basketball visions have clashed since then, between a ‘pro-business’ approach to the Europa Basketball League (which runs both the Euroleague and the European Championship, which are two major European club competitions) and the more traditional FIBA, which tends towards a system that maintains reach To competitions through national championships.
The struggle between these two viewpoints continues.
International teams are forced to play FIFA match windows without NBA or Euroleague players, who have not been released by their franchises or clubs.
tba / jr / gf / dr / iga