Russian big-league basketball club take time-out over debts
Published: 24 August, 2009, 13:55
Ural Great
TAGS: Sport, Basketball
One of the most successful basketball clubs in the modern Russian history, Ural Great, has been discontinued. The club’s management has decided not to participate in next year’s domestic championship.
The reason behind the move isn’t an original one – a lack of funding, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports. For the last few years the club has been struggling to pay off their debts. And the economic crisis seems to have tipped them over the edge.
The Perm side management say they need at least 40 million roubles (around 1.3 million dollars) to continue but all possibilities have been exhausted.
”We are going to take a break, settle all the problems with the debts, discuss all opportunities and prospects,” president Andrey Agishev said before adding:
”I think we can crack the problem ourselves.”
All the players have got free agent status and are now free to leave the club. Despite this fact, Agishev believes the club will resume their performance in a year, but they will need to build the team from scratch.
Ural Great was founded in 1995 and since then has won the domestic championship twice (second best in modern Russian history) as well as grabbing the FIBA EuroCup Challenge in 2006.
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Why is there absolutely no information about friendly matches of Russia National basketball team? For example, yesterday you were playing in Vilnius and lost 66-61. I am saying this not to offence russians, but is seems that there is no interest in newspapers and other media. Strange.