POR – LCB to vanish after season

LISBON (FBP) - Big changes are afoot in Portugal following an announcement by the country’s top basketball league, the Liga de Clubes de Basquetebol (LCB), that it will be no more after this year’s play-offs.

The Portuguese Basketball Federation’s FBP league, which has served as the second division, is to meet with LCB clubs on Wednesday and consider incorporating some of them into its own competition.

"We expect to organize a competition with 16 teams," FBP president Mario Saldanha confirmed to FIBA.Com.

The loss of the LCB doesn’t look good on the surface, but financial problems have dogged the league for some time and Saldanha says there are reasons to optimistic.

Fans will have plenty of reasons, he says, to enjoy the FBP league.

"For next season, for example, SPORTTV have won the rights to televise our games," he said.

Saldanha, despite helping the LCB launch, was always critical of the LCB strategy.

"There were no conditions to call it a Professional League," he said.

"How can we say it is professional when a team has a budget of 125.000 euros?

"It does not mean the end of the professional basketball in Portugal, though.

"There just have been no strategic conditions to carry on with a competition like that.

"The LCB had to pay to show their games on TV, instead of receiving. It needed a marketing strategy, and it need to make the game a real party, including cheerleaders, for example.

"The strategy could attract people to the pavilions. This did not happen.”

The LCB and FCB will meet to discuss the future of the game on Wednesday.

FIBA