Rome Pull Out of Turkish Airlines Euroleague after Arena Doesn’t Meet Requirements

Italian Basketball club, Acea Virtus Rome have announced they will not participate in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Basketball next season after they failed to meet the minimum requirements of the tournament including a sufficiently sized arena.

In a statement Euroleague Basketball said: “Prior to the finalization of the list of teams that will be proposed for participation in the 2013-14 Turkish Airlines Euroleague, one club that had earned the right to register for the regular season, Acea Virtus Rome of Italy, has announced that it will relinquish those rights to a B-license due to an inability to meet the competition’s minimum requirements.”

Officials of the club said they had not expected to qualify for the Euroleague so soon after having launched a long-term project last season and does not expect to be able to meet several requirements of the competition bylaws, in particular the standard regarding minimum arena capacity.

“For that reason, they said it is preferable now to pursue a step-by-step plan whose goal is to participate in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague in the future, when the club is better prepared,” the statement added.

Acea Virtus Rome finished as runner-up in the just-completed Italian League championship, thus earning the right for a B-license according to the 2013-14 Turkish Airlines Euroleague license allocation criteria. The competition bylaws allow for the renunciation of a B-license to be replaced by a wild card that will be granted to the club that the General Assembly considers appropriate at its own discretion, exploring initially as a priority maintaining the license within the same country.