RealGM

AS YOU MAY HAVE READ, THE EUROLEAGUE HAS CHANGED ITS TEAM SELECTION CRITERIA IN ADDITION TO THE COMPETITION STRUCTURE. 8 TEAMS WILL TAKE PART IN A CHALLENGE ROUND THAT WILL GIVE 2 POSITIONS TO THE TOP 24! FROM THESE 8, THE 7 HAVE BEEN PREDIFNED. THE 8th WILL BE A WILD CARD TEAM.
WHAT EUROPEAN TEAM DO YOU THINK WILL GET THE WILDCARD?

History wise, it could be Virtus Bologna... but i doubt Italian League will have another spot (we already have Siena, Milano and Roma plus Treviso in the preliminary round).

May it be another spanish team?

TO BE HONEST, I THINK THEY ARE GONNA PICK A TEAM WILLING TO THROW MONEY AT A BUNCH OF PLAYERS AND MAKE AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT. SOMETHING LIKE THE ST PETERSBURG LIONS SEVERAL YEARS AGO. I THINK THEY R COOKING SOMETHING UP IN LONDON.

I'd say a French team. Bertomeou would love to have a London based team, but it won't happen this season.

Plus, I guess there's another wild-card available for the Eurocup C Licence, because Rytas won the national championship. Plus, there are some teams that don't meet the arena size rules and may lose their spots in the qualifying rounds.

I think that they will give it to Alba Berlin, because it looks like that Alba won't win the title in Germany this season although they have the most money and fame of all german teams

Bertomeou would love to have a London based team, but it won't happen this season.

Or anytime soon. There isn't a domestic club team in England that is able to afford to play in Europe, yet alone competing. And that's just the Eurocup. Forget about Euroleague.

If there was a UK club created, other than the Euroleague, where would THE UK based Euroleague team compete? The rest of the British domestic league wouldn't be able to compete with a Euroleague quality team, both on court, and off the court financially and in terms of a suitable arena and facilities.

Would you have the team only playing once mid week in the Euroleague? What players would want to play just once a week? What players would want to play once a week in the Euroleague and once on the weekend dominating the shambles that is the British Basketball League?

In order for there to be a UK based Euroleague team, there has to be a respectable domestic league that can house such a high caliber organization. Our domestic league is light years away from being any good.

The professional game in the UK has to be desperately fixed (or created for that matter) before thinking about Europe.

^^Oh yeah, I absolutely agree, it won't happen in the near future either. Maybe a stronger national team and the Olympics can do something to help boosting the popularity of the game in the UK.

Participating teams for the 2009-10 Euroleague season:
http://www.euroleague.net/news/i/54644/180/item

Alba and Le Mans got the wild cards for the Qualifying Rounds.

Aris got in the Euroleague. So now Spain, Italy, and Greece all have 4 teams each in the Euroleague.