Athens, Belgrade, Cologne and Kaunas reportedly the candidates to host the final stage of the EuroLeague
Athens, Belgrade, Cologne and Kaunas are the candidates to host the final stage of the EuroLeague, per Eurohoops.net.
The league wants to conclude the season with the 18 teams playing all remaining regular-season games and then the top eight teams participating in a Final Eight tournament.
The EuroLeague will make a decision by May 24. If the season resumes, then games will be played in July (4-26).
For his part, Jordi Bertomeu talked about the criteria under which the EuroLeague is planning to resume and finish the season.
The CEO and president of the competition made it clear that games will be played only if players are 100% healthy and safe.
“If you look at the situation then that is a fair analysis. Right now, the conditions are not sufficient to resume the current season and this is the main reason why we have clarified that games will be played only when the right health and safety conditions are in place and when the governments and public health authorities allow.
This was clearly specified when negotiating with the ELPA and they agreed with this priority, including to extend the 2019-20 contracts until July 31, 2020, allowing us to extend the calendar to finish the season in July, a point that shows the commitment by the majority of the players to end the season if all health indicators allow us.
What is 100% clear is that all our clubs supported the scenario of finishing the season in the discussions we held at the last ECA Shareholders Executive Board Meeting.
It is important that we all stick to that decision that was taken only a few days ago. We have the obligation to get everything ready to play the end of the season while there is still hope,” Bertomeu said in a lengthy interview with Sports.ru.
If everything goes according to plan, then preparation (quarantine, training sessions) will start from late May and will end in July 2.