ABA League decides: Dubai welcomes Buducnost on neutral ground

The ABA League has decided - Dubai will host the Buducnost Voli basketball players on a neutral court in the semifinals of the regional competition.

This is the decision after today's extraordinary session of the ABA League Presidency, which was held via the Zoom application.

"In the spirit of responsibility towards the competition, the clubs and all participants of the ABA League, it was unanimously decided that the Dubai Basketball Club will play its home games at the end of the season on a neutral court. It was also decided that the semi-final games and eventual final games, given the small number of matches remaining until the end of the season, will be organized and played on a neutral court," was the conclusion of the ABA League Presidency meeting.

The first semi-final match, hosted by Dubai, is scheduled to be played on May 20th.

"The ABA League Presidency expresses its full understanding and sincere regret for the circumstances that the Dubai Basketball Club, one of the extremely important partners and members of the regional basketball family, is going through. Aware of the complexity of the current situation and the challenges of a global nature, the members of the Presidency expressed their full support for the club, and their belief that the current circumstances will soon stabilize. With the desire to overcome the current problems as soon as possible, the ABA League Presidency sincerely hopes that the Dubai Basketball Club will play its games again in front of its fans on home turf as early as next season," the meeting concluded.

Dubai has played ABA League and Euroleague games on neutral ground in Sarajevo since the start of the Middle East war. After eliminating Spartak in the quarterfinals of the regional competition, Dubai expressed its desire to play the finals on home turf, at the Coca-Cola Arena.

However, Buducnost immediately rejected the proposal. A session of the Montenegrin club's Board of Directors was held, followed by discussions with the players and coaching staff, and a possible trip to the Emirates was rejected, which the Montenegrin club informed the league's sports director, Milija Vojinović, in a letter yesterday.

"After discussions with the players and coaching staff, the club has come to the conclusion that, in the event that the ABA League semi-final match against BC Dubai is played in the UAE, it would not be able to field a full team, as a certain number of players and coaching staff members do not want to travel to an area where, unfortunately, circumstances that could jeopardize the normal functioning of the team during the trip, stay and the match itself are possible on a daily basis. The decision was made for several reasons, primarily related to security risks, but also to the possibility of the match not being played, which would further question the organization of the final and the most important part of the ABA League," reads, among other things, the letter that Budućnost sent to Vojinović yesterday.