Cibona GM Domagoj Cavlovic: We really want to resurrect this club

Domagoj Čavlović GM of Cibona Zagreb spoke about current situation of the club, and the future of Cibona.

The Croatian powerhouse is going through real drama this offseason. FIBA is demanding from Croatian Basketball Federation to kick Cibona out of the league due to their debts to their 4 ex players that decided to report the owings to FIBA. (Markota, Giriček, Tomas, Vrbanc).

Therefore, FIBA will not allow Cibona to bring international players and they banned them from playing any international competition. (The club decided not to play in the Euroleague this season anyway) 

The problem for Cibona is that FIBA views ABA league as international competition, but Cibona views ABA league as their domestic league. Also, ABA league is not the member of the FIBA organisation which goes to Cibona, but club has worries about this decision says Čavlović:

- To us, ABA league is not an international competition and I hope ABA league and Croatian Basketball Fedaration will confirm that.

Čavolović was asked if the club will go to bankruptcy:

- If FIBA decision gets confirmed, there is a posibility, because if we don't play ABA league, we earn less money, and there is not a lot of chance to get FIBA account block of our back, and start paying our debts.

-There is no way we can resolve this on our own, we need help from the players we owe money, but also we need a help from CBF and board of the ABA league. We really want to resurrect this club no matter how many years it would take to get it done.

He oddly added that they have the team in mind for the upcoming season. It would feature a lot of young, mostly Croatian players.

Written by Hrvoje Vujanic