Old Wild West and Gesteco discover their opponents: the two Friulians in the red group with Fortitudo Bologna, Pistoia and Forlì

The groups have been made official, except for the Eurobasket Rome

UDINE. The new A2 series is born unfinished. The Federal Council, which met on Friday 15 July in Rome, excluded Eurobasket Rome from the championship due to an old unpaid Bat award, therefore the second national league 2022/23 will have 27 teams at the start instead of the 28 scheduled and it will be necessary to review the formula of the clock phase.

Confirmed the group with Adriatic and Tyrrhenian backbone for Old Wild West Udine and Gesteco Cividale.

Cold shower

The exclusion of the Eurobasket Rome was decided by the Fip following the opinion of ComTec. The Capitoline company is guilty of not having provided by July 7 proof of the payment of the fees of its cardholder dating back to the 2018/19 sports season (it is rumored about 30,000 euros not paid to Damian Hollis), as emerged from the Basketball Consent award arbitral tribunal (Bat) on 9 May last and as confirmed by Fiba, which took steps to block the transfer market of the Capitoline club.

The Eurobasket Roma company has issued a note in which it announces that it has already started the legal process to appeal against the decision.

Other decisions

In any case, Capo d’Orlando will not be rescued, since federal resolution 101/2022 of 23 May indicates, for the A2 championship, the abolition of the right to repechage until the end of the reform of the championships, which will be fully operational from 2024. / 2025.

Instead, Npc Rieti and Stella Azzurra Roma smile, admitted to the next A2 series after having acquired the sports rights of Bakery Piacenza and Pallacanestro Biella respectively.

Group Red

During the council, the Fip approved the two groups proposed by the National Basketball League for the next A2 series. Udine and Cividale are part of the Red group with the block of Emilia Romagna (with the exception of Assigeco Piacenza), the two Tuscans, the two from Puglia, one from Abruzzo (Chieti) and one from Lombardy (Mantua).

First considerations: avoid the three most ambitious Lombard women (Vanoli Cremona, Cantù and Treviglio), the APU is clearly the favorite for the first place at the end of the regular season. The group appears leveled towards the middle, Pistoia and Forlì seem the potential candidates for the podium, but far from the bianconeri. The Eagles will play to defend the category, possibly without going through the caudine forks of the play-outs, as long as they hit the second foreigner.

formula change

The reduction from 28 to 27 teams forces the Basketball League to review the formula of the second phase, unless the Eurobasket Roma appeal against exclusion from the championship is upheld. With an odd number of teams, in fact, the clock phase is inapplicable, as we saw already in the 2020/21 season, when the LNP was forced to invent the bizarre formula with six-team groups (plus one of three).

We will see if a second phase will be re-proposed along the lines of that of two years ago, or new ideas will be born: the LNP has announced that it will elaborate the format together with the Fip competitive sector and will bring it for approval in the next federal council.