FIBA Europe Officially Approved Balkan International Basketball League
The General Secretary of FIBA Europe Nar Zanolin officially approved the establishment of Balkan International Basketball League (BIBL). Together with the members of all basketball federations were accepted the regulations of BIBL which are made according to the same ones of FIBA Europe.BIBL will be the first international basketball competition to accept the proposal made by Nar Zanolin in which: ‘Each team must have on the court at least one player eligible for the national team of the country that the club belongs to.’ ‘The situation with Balkan is simple - the Board decided after voting yesterday about the 2 wild cards. My job is to give information to the Board. For the basketball I think they took the right decision. There are elections in Greek federation and they asked us to wait about the names of their teams. I believe that next season Bulgaria will have one more team in the Balkan league’, said Shtriks.
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This is a big step for Bulgaria to add international competition to it’s league. Teams from Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia for example play in their own international league called the Adriatic League. The top teams in Bulgaria only played 32 total regular season games in the Bulgarian League last year, so it was clear that to improve basketball in Bulgaria they needed to join an international league. Ideally the top teams in Bulgaria will now get to play in the BIBL, ULEB Cup, and EuroCup. This means more revenues, more games, and overall a stronger league.
This is also something OMT should keep an eye on. Bulgaria is an emerging market with an emerging basketball program. The one rule I dislike is that all teams must always have one player eligible for their country’s national team on the floor at all times during BIBL competition. I understand that each country wants the guys from their country to play, but I contend that is what the second division is for. If they want to institute a rule where 5 players on the roster must be from the home country, then more power to them. However they really shouldn’t handcuff a coach like this. I say if you want playing time earn it. It is possible for a team to have 2 Americans and 3 Bosmans (from outside the home country) on the roster. A league shouldn’t prevent those 5 players from playing together for 5 minutes or 20 minutes for that matter. Here in the United States we encourage diversity and don’t care if the starting center of an NBA team is from China, Spain, or the United States. The Bulgarian League would be wise to allow a third American player to join each team next season. It certainly would increase the level of play tremendously.
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