Russian Revolution

[l'emigrante]

In Russia ten teams left Superleague to make a new league:

We, the undersigned representatives of Men’s Superleague A clubs, due to the events of last month which set the Russian basketball in turmoil, decided to walk out of the Basketball Superleague Board. In this situation, we consider it impossible to participate in the competition, organized and managed by the managers who have lost our trust.

The leading clubs of the country are going to establish a new, professional and independent, basketball league for the best Russian teams. We are convinced that only the independent status of the tournament which will be run by authorities, established by clubs, ensures a high level of competition, fair play and improves the quality of Russian basketball. We have created a working group of representatives of all the founding clubs; the working group is entrusted to develop regulatory and legal documents needed to create and conduct the competitions.

We are fully aware of the necessity and importance of our decision, we are ready to bear responsibility for its consequences, we will make every effort to bring the respect and attention of fans in Russia and abroad back to the League Championship, to attract spectators to the stands and children to the sport schools. We hope that our intentions will be supported throughout the basketball community in the country.

- Professional Basketball Club CSKA (Moscow),
- Basketball Club Khimki (Moscow Region, Khimki),
- Basketball Club UNICS (Kazan),
- Men's Basketball Club Dynamo (Moscow),
- Basketball Club Lokomotiv-Kuban (Krasnodar),
- Men's Basketball Club Spartak (St. Petersburg),
- Basketball Club Triumph (Moscow Region, Lyubertsy),
- Basketball Club Red Wings (Samara),
- MSU Basketball Club Yenisei (Krasnoyarsk),
- Basketball Club Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhny Novgorod).

[Gytaz]

Well, congratulations to all the clubs on this brave step, I hope the new league will be corruption-free.

[rikhardur]

How will ULEB and FIBA deal with this? Will it be considered a "legal" move? I remember something similar happened in Ukraine one or two years ago and the new league wasn't recognised (they lacked powehouses, true). More turmoil in the horizon for Russian basketball...

[Hot Spot]

ULEB definitely will like this move, as now the russian clubs follow the example of the other big European leagues (like ACB) and become independent from their national federation. The Russian clubs will run their own league, which immediately should be recognized by ULEB.

The reaction of FIBA Europe will be interesting. Normally as head of the national federations they have to condemn the move. But having just thrown the president of the Russian federation (Chernov) and his friends out of their Central Board themselves after the big scandal they might understand the move of the clubs?

In Ukraine two years ago the situation was different. There was a fight between clubs and FIBA Europe backed the top clubs, which stayed with the federation. Now in Russia all 10 clubs from the 1st division are united in their move against the federation.

[prtzn]

We, the undersigned representatives of Men’s Superleague A clubs, due to the events of last month which set the Russian basketball in turmoil, decided to walk out of the Basketball Superleague Board. In this situation, we consider it impossible to participate in the competition, organized and managed by the managers who have lost our trust.

...

- Professional Basketball Club CSKA (Moscow),
- Basketball Club Khimki (Moscow Region, Khimki),
- Basketball Club UNICS (Kazan),
- Men's Basketball Club Dynamo (Moscow),
- Basketball Club Lokomotiv-Kuban (Krasnodar),
- Men's Basketball Club Spartak (St. Petersburg),
- Basketball Club Triumph (Moscow Region, Lyubertsy),
- Basketball Club Red Wings (Samara),
- SKGAU Basketball Club Yenisey (Krasnoyarsk),
- Basketball Club Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhny Novgorod).

Started laughing when I read this Lokomotiv-Kuban name in the list...
It still puts a smile on my face every time I read that "- Basketball Club Lokomotiv-Kuban (Krasnodar)" line...

On a serious note, good luck to them...
BTW, I wonder how are they gonna choose the refs for their new league next season...

[Fedfan]

that's a very brave move!Well done
I don't think that Fiba will be positive to this in anyway!
I like to be positive here and believe this will really change things for the better.

[Billy Bounce]

A few details on the new league:

1) Season fee : $300k
2) Arena capacity >3500
3) 16 men roster
4) 6 non-Russian players allowed per game ( doesn't matter if European or not )

src: http://www.sports.ru/basketball/71266532.html

[robsam]

Thats a good news. You'll definitely get the support of each and every basketball community from the whole country because its a kind of great initiative which will be beneficial for everyone. All basketball fans and teams are with you.

[goga78]

The corruption story continues. The committee that was created to work on the incident we have discussed here already has found no evidence for preferential treatment of respective teams by the referees. That was told after the analysis of the audio tape, which clearly stated that the refs got an order to make Lokomotiv win against Dynamo but Loko played bad enough to lose the game even with the refs' help. As always, the same story again. Chernov will remain head of RFB and his boss, sports minister Mutko will not lift a finger, to make him leave his position. But we are also talking about Mutko, who is a high profile corruptionist himself, which was now proven (for those who didn't want to know it before) with the financial report of the Russian delegation at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. I'm curious, whether the press will make much noise about it as it used to do at the beginning of the story.