By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Today, the EuroLeague shareholders and management are traveling to Geneva for a meeting with FIBA and the NBA, in light of a possible cooperation as the NBA Europe project is moving at full speed.
One day before, the European Parliament published a resolution that was voted on with an overwhelming majority about the protection versus foreign ownership of European sports and capital flows out of Europe, as well as on the need to protect European sports values and identity.
This is not the first time that the European Union has been involved in sports issues, ruling in the past on issues concerning private sports leagues and, more recently, about the Super League of football that has not come to fruition.
Among the key points of this new resolution, which will be forwarded to the European Council and Commission, there is support for the European Sports Model and a recognition of “the need to protect it”.
However, the most relevant to the NBA Europe project mention is the fact that the European parliament “acknowledges the rising trend of foreign investment and ownership in European sport, and calls on the Commission to consider the impact of this trend, when supporting efforts to safeguard the financial integrity and competitive balance of European sport”.
On the other hand, the resolution “calls on the Commission to fulfil its role as the guardian of the Treaties in one of the most important social and economic sectors of the EU by actively monitoring and addressing threats, at all levels, to the values-based European Sport Model, including breakaway competitions that endanger the overall sports ecosystem”.
“Breakaway competitions” can practically include all private leagues, especially those that are not approved by sports federations.