Need a budget bigger. Kiev-basket refused to participate in the Champions League
Ukrainian basketball club “Kiev-basket” decided to abandon the proposed FIBA direct spots in the group stage of the Champions League.
Head coach Ainars Bagatskis explained that participation in the top competition requires a different level of the budget to build a solid team. Now the club can still start in the qualification tournament, and if he loses, it will automatically go in the European Cup.
Ukrainian championship 2019/20 was completed ahead of schedule. Champion was named “Dnepr”, the second place was taken by “Kiev-basket” and the third “Prometheus” from Kamensky.
Last season in “Kiev-basket” (as “Dnepr”) were in the European Cup, and the people of Kiev went out in the 1/4 finals, where they lost to the Turkish club “Karmi”.
Kyiv-Basket coach Ainars Bagatskis told in his recent interview his team had offer from BCL to start the new season directly from group stage, but the club declined because it requires another whole level of budget for building the team…
— Oleksandr Proshuta (@alex_proshuta) June 4, 2020