Last week, ECA Shareholders Executive Board met in Milan, Italy and discussed the progress of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. One of the main topics were the EuroLeague Players Association (ELPA) propositions to empower the players within the competition, with the objective to start and ultimately reach a collective bargaining agreement. Some of ELPA’s initial proposals include stricter rules of overdue payments, limitations of practices, shorter training camp, easier travel, improved game schedule and additional details of neutral second medical opinion.
- The number of double game weeks will be reduced from nine to seven
- The Regular Season will start a week earlier (3rd and 4th of October 2019)
- The Playoffs will start a week later (on 21st of April 2020)
- The Final Four will take place one week later (21st to 24th of May 2020)
Secondly, ELPA has negotiated a change the traditional “round robin” format for double game weeks. Therefore, EuroLeague is making two of the seven double game weeks a “home-home“ or “away-away” weeks. Away games would be determined based on location, so the teams will be traveling in a certain part of Europe when playing two games in the same week. This will lower number of total kilometres travelled during the season and therefore allow players to recover well from tough games and long trips.
Boštjan Nachbar, the Managing Director of ELPA added: “At ELPA we are very content that on our initiative, EuroLeague is implementing these important changes which will lower players workload, lower the number of possible injuries and increase the recovery time between games. We are positive that additional improvements, which we are still finalizing and should be included in EuroLeague bylaws this summer, will bring a very encouraging change of conditions for players within the league.”
