Euroleague Basketball CEO Jordi Bertomeu has visited FC Bayern Munich management as part of the ongoing negotiations for EuroLeague A-license.
Euroleague Basketball CEO Jordi Bertomeu and FC Bayern Munich President Herbert Heiner met the media in Munich on January 14, Wednesday, to share current situation about the negotiations of Bayern becoming one of the owners of the league.
The full statement of Euroleague Basketball CEO Jordi Bertomeu:
“It’s well-known that we have a plan, we have vision for the future of the league. This future consists having a league with a significant group of clubs with long-term participation in the league, with a group of clubs that are owners of the league. Today we have 11 teams out of 18 teams as owners. In our plan, all the clubs should become the owners of the league in the future. It is also well-known that for us Germany is an important market to grow our sport, our game. Consistently, couple of years ago we invited Bayern to join with wild card.
Now we are at another point in which we can open a new conversation which is to invite Bayern to become one of the owners of the league. As you all know, we had the same conversation last week in Lyon with ASVEL. This was the reason of my visit and it was very interesting, very productive at least from our side. We had the opportunity to share our plans and how we see Bayern Munich fitting in this plan with president and his team. I’m very optimistic that we will have Bayern in this group of owners of the league. We will continue our conversations with Bayern in the next weeks.”
Herbert Heiner: “We have some questions which have to be answered.”
The full statement of FC Bayern Munich President Herbert Heiner:
“First of all, thank you very much to Jordi [Bertomeu] and the team that came to Munich today, spent the time with us and thank you for inviting us to become one of the shareholders of the EuroLeague in the future. This represents the recognition within EuroLeague of what we’ve done in the last 10 years to establish basketball in Germany, to establish Munich as leading team in Germany. It also represents the recognition of what we are planning the future: how we build the team, how we see basketball, how we see the EuroLeague, and the infrastructure we are building.
As you all know, together with Red Bull and SAP, we are investing on the SAP Garden which we believe is one of the most modern or the most modern basketball arena in Europe. Also, this gives us more possibilities to display basketball in the future in a much different way, to different consumer groups; because this arena will be fully digitalized. This is also very well recognized by Euroleague.
As Jordi said, we had intense and interesting a few hours this afternoon. We are all very optimistic. But, nevertheless, now we know with details. Obviously, we have some questions which have to be answered. Within next six weeks, we will discuss all of these open questions and different point of views which have to be clarified and understood. It is not that we are in conflict. However, together, we need to understand what each and every partner expects from each other in the future. Then, hopefully, we’ll come to a decision.
We are optimistic. We are already playing in the EuroLeague. This is the second biggest league after the NBA in the world in basketball. [It is] extremely regarded in Europe; it is a pleasure and fun for us to play there.”