By John Rammas/ irammas@eurohoops.net
Dimitris Itoudis has been a longtime advocate of the 30-team EuroLeague, and he repeated his position speaking to Mozzartsport.
The Greek coach and former EuroLeague champion totally agrees with the direction the league is taking and hopes that sooner rather than later the EuroLeague will have 30 teams.
As he said: “I think we are going in the direction where we will have 24 teams, where we will maybe reach 26 and, maybe in the future, God willing, to what I dream of and what I hope for – 30 clubs. To have conferences or groups in which we will compete and eventually reach the desired playoffs. As far as I am concerned, that would be the pinnacle of the game. Have the last game of the season be a EuroLeague game, and have the basketball season in Europe end with the playoffs. Will it be for ten years? God grant that we will be alive and well so that you and I can see it.”
Itoudis’ line of thinking is very simple and hard to argue with about the expansion: “Why? Because you see that there are now 20 of us, right? I think and hope that the Russian teams will return. FIBA went ahead and gave the green light for players, individuals, and referees, so the next step would be teams and team sports. If the Russian teams return, which is my wish, we already have other candidates. There’s PAOK, there’s Aris, there’s Roma, Hapoel from Tel Aviv, and all the teams that want to be part of it, which means that we have more teams that can guarantee financial stability.”
And this is going to be beneficial for everyone, according to Itoudis: “This means more teams, more players, more coaches, more officials… I repeat, whether this expansion will be accepted or not is a matter for discussion, but I think we should grow”.
Make 
Your Preferred Basketball Source.
Add Eurohoops to Google