The battle for France between FIBA and Eurocup
In another article published 2 months ago, I spoke about Sasha Djordjevic’s prophecy that French teams won’t join the Basketball Champions League this season. He said at that moment that French clubs are looking for quality and that’s why they won’t apply for this competition. Djordjevic very know for his intention of catching the public’s attention was corrected the next day by the president of the French league, Alain Deral who came with a clear denial in L’Equipe according to Sportando:
“I think he has always loved to provoke,” Deral said of Djordjevic. “French clubs want to play in the BCL, besides Monaco, which is EuroCup-bound. No club said they don’t want to play in the BCL.”
Now, it looks that the things are totally different than what Sasha Djordjevic tried to convince us. Instead of having no French participants in BasketballCL, there are more teams involved in the continental competition than last season. Sig Strasbourg and JDA Dijon will continue also this season in Champions League, while 2 other prestigious French clubs (former Euroleague and Eurocup powerhouses) have joined the competition.
At the same time, Pau-Lacq Orthez won’t play in BCL next season, but there are already 4 teams from the Hexagon that will start in the groups and this is more than enough for France. It will be exactly the same number of teams that are involved Eurocup for the next season, where France will have as well 4 representatives: AS Monaco, Levallois Metropolitans, Nanterre ’92 and JL Bourg.
The battle for France between FIBA and Eurocup is very intense in order to attract more clubs than ever because this country is a huge basketball market and – in spite of the average results in the European competitions – with an important fan base, in continue progress for the years to come.
Image: Basketball Champions League
Gratian Cormos
