Euroleague upgrade. My thoughts

[Panathinaikos bc]

First excuse my bad English.
Secondly allow me to use my bad English in order to express my thoughts about Euroleague with its current form.

In case Euroleague officials reading this forum (which I doubt)

Mr Jordi Bertomeu.

I know that basketball in Europe is not so popular sport in most of countries. Especially in north of Europe. (England Germany France Scandinavian countries etch)
I know that only Spain Greece Itally Lithuania Russia & the ex Yugoslavian countries, takes basketball more seriously. But then again even in those countries, basketball comes as the second most popular sport after football.

Euroleague has made a lot of steps since the disputes between ULEB & FIBA.
We have seen great games, great teams, great players, great new arenas.

Allow me to express my skepticism though.

Under its current form I think that Euroleague cannot improve its product more. If you really want to developed your product, you have to create a decent and stable income for the EL teams.

EL teams, get some financial compensation from euroleague but the amount of money allow me to say that is peanuts. No serious at all.
Panathinaikos had last year 23 million euros budget and got from Euroleague just 1 million euros as EL Champion.
How can we support the EL teams with so few money? I remind you that in most countries almost everywhere, the local basketball federations are very pour as well. Maybe except the ACB league, all the other federations are strangling to have decent leagues.

In order to create a really strong European league I believe that either we have to allow the EL teams to manage the TV broadcasting rights, in order to find/create more economic funds, or we have to create a close league (like NBA) something it would bring back the interest. (My opinion and of course it's discussable)

Euroleague must become more professional.

I find very odd the fact that the EL trophy is named with its sponsor name as well. First time in my life I see the sponsors name written on a trophy !!!
I also find it very bad for the firm, for the Euroleague, the fact that the sponsors name appears with bigger letters above the league's name.
It appears like the name of the League is Turkey airlines, and the name of the sponsor is Euroleague.

I know that what I mention now are just details. But for me the way some one is advertising its product is very important. And I believe that Euroleague lacks of marketing as well. The Euroleague site needs some improvement, your tv sportscasters are like sportscasting ice skating most of times and please do something about the TV highlight games. They show absolutely nothing, and you cant have a general idea just in 30 seconds. That's how much the highlights last.

I will ask from the forumites to express and share their thoughts about Euroleague's future as well.

We know that Euroleague will never become Champions League, but if we still want to have great teams, then we have to find a way to improve the league and find more economic funds for the EL teams.

I don't think that the rich presidents of our teams, will keep spoil their money for their Beloved teams and for their passion.
How can you expect Mr Jordi Bertomeu from these people to continue to invest to their basketball clubs when Euroleague offers almost nothing, financial wise.

Euroleague is not you. Euroleague is not just a name which is copyright protected by you. Euroleague is PAO OLY BARCA REAL MACCABI CSKA SIENA and all these teams that are strangle every year to find money to pay their contracts.

So there's only two solutions.

Either we cut the budgets to 4-5 million euro for each team, in order to have an income outcome balance, (but that would spoil the dynamic of the rosters, and all the good players would leave for NBA) or we keep these businessmen alive , we keep the high budgets, but we give a reason as well to these businessmen, to these presidents to keep spending money for the EL teams. And the reason would be if they had any profits to gain through Euroleague games.

THERE IS NO WAY FOR SOMEONE TO INVEST ON A TEAM, WHILE THERE IS NO PROFIT TO GAIN.
And Euroleague should not only give the opportunity for some one to claim the European title, but also should give the opportunity for someone to invest in this league.

And don't believe that Mr Giannakopouloi or Mr Angellopouloi, and the other rich presidents of CSKA BARCELONA etch, will keep spending their money on a dead financial product as Euroleage is under its current form.

After all if Euroleague has a good brand name, that is because of these rich presidents and their teams. With out them there would be no Euroleague.
So. You have to find funds for the EL teams. And the fact that basketball is not so popular in Europe, there is no excuse.
There is no excuse to pay just 300.000 euros to EL team for its participation to the league.

Funny amount of money. Do we want to kill the teams? Ok. But you won't see again teams with superstars and fully crowded arenas.
Unless if Euroleague wish to return to 1980 era. Of course by that time, money was not the issue.

[wardjdim]

I seriously hope that you are not planning to send this thing to Bertomeu. As much as I dislike him and the Euroleague "project", I don't think he deserves such a punishment

[Billy Bounce]

The funniest part of this post is that Jordi is cooking something similar, it's called "The Financial Fair Play Rules"(tm)

The main criterion that falls under these principles is the break-even rule, which calls for clubs to commit to not spending more than what they generate in economic activity.

The Financial Fair play rules work on concepts, based on budgeted economic performance indicators that have been extracted from the information submitted by clubs, include a minimum budget for those clubs that participate in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague competition; a maximum loss allowed over a three-year period; a limit to player expenses and shareholder´s contributions related to the overall budget; and a common approach in the treatment of some investment write-offs and in the market value of some sponsorship and advertising revenues.

http://www.euroleague.net/euroleague...s/i/94796/6330

I have to say I'd like to see the faces of clubs executives if EL will actually enforce transparent budgets , salary caps (sic!) & limits on sponsors' spending.

[Panathinaikos bc]

Sorry but I'm afraid that you lost me here.
You mean that you are satisfied with Euroleague under its current form? Don't you think that Euroleague should improve the league?

Personally I want to see basketball in Europe to gain more fans every year and to become one of the most popular sports.
In order to achieved that we have to increase the interest for the EL games, and we can do that only in one way. Only if we have more competitive teams from all the countries.

Am I so wrong here, or is it my bad English that makes you laugh

[Billy Bounce]

Kudos for your intentions to change something, really .

As you see EL thinks in the same direction ( see break-even rule, salary caps, etc in the link I gave )

And don't believe that Mr Giannakopouloi or Mr Angellopouloi, and the other rich presidents of CSKA BARCELONA etch, will keep spending their money on a dead financial product as Euroleague is under its current form.

They spend and that is a problem, the players prices gone up , so it was nearly impossible for EL clubs to spend only the money they earn. Maccabi is the only exception here.

CSKA spends the money of Norilsk Nickel , Barcelona of its wealthy football club, Pao & Oly - money of its wealthy owners' businesses.

Now, I don't believe Jordi will come to CSKA Vatutin & will demand to gave up $30M they've got from NN. If it will happen, CSKA budget will be smaller then Partizan. I doubt CSKA will survive at all under those conditions.

So it's utopian idea, to say the least. Probably EL will get some level of financial transparency from clubs, but budget & salary caps ? No way.

[Panathinaikos bc]

Οk I don't disagree with you.

There's no way for a league to be able to support financial all the teams. Not even in Champions league which is the richest professional league.
But there's something we could do as they do.

Champions league winner, get something like 30-40 millions euro. (From its participation to the league, from group stages, from winnings, etch)
Usually the champions league winner has an astronomical budget and the money from CL are not enough to cover the team's expenses.

But a medium or weak CL team like APOEL (Cyprus) which has only 20 million euros budget, can cover the team's expenses from its participation to group stage.
And if they manage to go further on the league, they can win more.

That's what Euroleague should do as well in order to help the weaker teams to be more competitive.
Of course they can't find sponsors to refund the budget of Pao Cska etch, but they should at list pay 3-4 million euro to the weaker EL teams.

Sorry but even if you win the Euroleague title, you get something like 1 million euro. Is this normal?
The way I see it, Euroleague is using the teams, in order to make profits out of them. And the EL teams gets nothing.

If we want to create a competitive league, a true basketball league, we have to find more sponsors, to increase the fan interest around Europe, and refund the EL teams with a decent amount of money.

And I strongly believe that in some years we are going to have a closed league with 32 European teams.
May be in order to keep the interest alive in European domestic leagues, the champion teams of these leagues can claim its participation to Euroleague through play off games.

I would suggest from 32 EL places the last 4 or 8 teams each year to loose their positions (return to their domestic league) and 4 - 8 other champion teams from different domestic leagues, to take their place.

That would keep alive the interest in domestic leagues, and we would have a closed league as well.

It would be better for our teams as well.
See for example how Maccabi is strangling to keep its good shape in order to be ready and competitive for Euroleague games.
Israel league is very weak and Maccabi is always the champions team. Like here in Greece with PAO.
I believe that it would be better for our teams to play each year only in Euroleague.

There's no point to play in a weak domestic league while we can play in a united European league.
I don't want EL to become NBA, I don't agree with many things they have in their league, but we can borrow some good things they have.

That's all.

[Panathinaikos bc]

They spend and that is a problem, the players prices gone up , so it was nearly impossible for EL clubs to spend only the money they earn.

So according your opinion each team's budget should be balanced with its expenses.
What I say is to create more funds especially for the weaker teams.

What you say is logical.

But if we do that, the only EL champions would be the Spanish teams. All the other domestic leagues are very pour. So we will have PAO OLY with small budget, CSKA and other big clubs from weak leagues also with small budgets, and the great Spanish teams with huge ones, since they have more income from ACB league.

That way we will create a huge gap between Spain and all the others !!!

That would create a two gear league.
The first gear would be the rich Spanish teams, and then all the other teams would just follow.

Imagine PAO OLY CSKA with 5 million budget. They wouldn't be competitive any more. And that should be their budget in order to have a balanced economy.

So the problem is not that they spending more money. Thank god they are that crazy and we are able to have great teams with great players.
If we want to have financial transparency for the EL teams, then Euroleague must find a way to increase the funds for them.

Increasing the sponsors and the interest for Euroleague world wide, we will be able to increase the funds for the EL teams.
And with out wealthy strong EL teams, no one will want to watch Euroleague games.

Instead of asking for the player prices contracts to go down (which is normal to do so but it's not the only solution) we should asking from EL to increase the financial compensation for the teams.

The solution is to make stronger teams, a better organized league. Not the opposite. To cut the prices loose great players, and be left off with their reserves.

[Panathinaikos bc]

Does anyone knows his team income?
I mean, does the teams announce their each year's profits and losses ?

Here in Greece is like a secret. We only know the cost of the current budget.

Some one said that Maccabi has a balanced income/outcome every year. Can you provide us more informations about? That would be very interesting.

[Billy Bounce]

So according your opinion each team's budget should be balanced with its expenses.
What I say is to create more funds especially for the weaker teams.

What you say is logical.

But if we do that, the only EL champions would be the Spanish teams. All the other domestic leagues are very pour. So we will have PAO OLY with small budget, CSKA and other big clubs from weak leagues also with small budgets, and the great Spanish teams with huge ones, since they have more income from ACB league.

That way we will create a huge gap between Spain and all the others !!!

That would create a two gear league.
The first gear would be the rich Spanish teams, and then all the other teams would just follow.

Imagine PAO OLY CSKA with 5 million budget. They wouldn't be competitive any more. And that should be their budget in order to have a balanced economy.

So the problem is not that they spending more money. Thank god they are that crazy and we are able to have great teams with great players.
If we want to have financial transparency for the EL teams, then Euroleague must find a way to increase the funds for them.

Increasing the sponsors and the interest for Euroleague world wide, we will be able to increase the funds for the EL teams.
And with out wealthy strong EL teams, no one will want to watch Euroleague games.

Instead of asking for the player prices contracts to go down (which is normal to do so but it's not the only solution) we should asking from EL to increase the financial compensation for the teams.

The solution is to make stronger teams, a better organized league. Not the opposite. To cut the prices loose great players, and be left off with their reserves.

So you suggest EL to take money from good managed teams & to transfer that money to poor managed ones ?

Otherwise, where EL would take those money from ? EL indirectly sponsors the clubs by granting them broadcast rights in their own countries. Pao gets the money of airing their games in Greece, MTA in Israel.

The TV broadcast rights in other countries belong to EL, but the market is extremely small ( compared to football Champions league), so EL is getting peanuts money here.

Here is list of TV channels that aired PAO-MTA last game:

Greece: NOVASPORTS 3

France: SPORT+
Israel: CHANNEL 10

Romania: DIGISPORT
Africa: SETANTA

Russia: NTV+
USA: ESPN 3

Turkey: NTV SPOR
Baltic: VIASAT

Poland: CANAL+
Croatia: SPORTKLUB

Italy: SPORTITALIA
Serbia: SPORTKLUB

Internet: EUROLEAGUE.TV
Slovenia: SPORTKLUB

Greek Novasports & Israeli Channel10 money goes to Pao & Maccabi budgets. All the others: SPORTKLUB, NTV SPOR, VIASAT , etc' are dedicated sport channels . I doubt they exceed 1% TV rating for this game, so I guess they paid EL accordingly.

[Billy Bounce]

Does anyone knows his team income?
I mean, does the teams announce their each year's profits and losses ?

Here in Greece is like a secret. We only know the cost of the current budget.

Some one said that Maccabi has a balanced income/outcome every year. Can you provide us more informations about? That would be very interesting.

I've got only link in Hebrew : http://sports.walla.co.il/?w=//1655900

Major income ( first pic ) EL TV rights 2M, sponsors 2M, tickets 8M , total = 18.4M
Major expenses: foreign players - 6.7M, Israeli players 3.8M, coaches, doctors & scouts - 2.4M , total=17.2M

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Well my thoughts are basicaly the same as in this thread

I believe Uleb really missed with their marketing principles. Consequently, they're not optimising their revenues and are not being able to provide any larger portion of € from TV rights for various teams, the way champion league for example does.

Uleb believes their incomes from TV rights will be optimised by marketing same chosen teams, as the potential newbies won't achieve the effect on TV audience (potentialy sponsors and further) the old teams would have.
By that, they consider Unicaja Malaga as more beneficial to various incomes they get, compared to f.e. Bilbao.
I firmly believe, they are dead wrong here, whoever is in charge of this strategy should be fired long ago.

Pro's:
1. TV audience (let's just simply call that "fans") to a large degree knows most of the teams playing in EL as fluctuation here isn't all that big
2. this way bigger chance for rivalries emerges
3. most of the euroleague teams are this way better off established brands, fans will attribute those teams with "quality"
4. teams get some easier long term financial planning by participating in euroleague consecutively

con's:
1. no.1 pro' isn't exactly all that beneficial as one could assume, as most euroleague fans don't neccesarily pay all that attention to consider Gran Canaria or Valencia that much worse in basketball as f.e. Unicaja Malaga
2. with exception of few bigger teams, I don't really see those rivalries emerging, majority of them in any case have roots in either nationality, football, city rivalry that aren't all that related with bball
3. Just as some euroleague teams are improving their brand position, the other half is wasting it, as being pounded by +20 will in no way emburse some positive feelings from foreign fans within the following seasons. Sadly I don't think Olimpija is regarded as it was in the 90ies anymore
4. by few teams having an easier way acquireing sponsors due to playing in EL, their compatitors are way worse off at the same area, not being able to compete with those sponsors without a slightest chance to qualify to euroleague


TV contracts, just as f.e. players contracts aren't all that negotiable. When you reach some limit it's hard to change it for some big % either up or down and TV contracts will only increase slowely through longer period of good TV ratings.

I remember the case few years ago, when french teams were not covered by any major TV station, in fact some local TV stations got the broadcasts basicaly for free as noone was interested in buying the rights. After that happens, just as I've wrote in the upper paragraph, the EL producers will have a pretty damn hard time trying to achieve some noticable sum from some cable tv station the season after. French championship being unimportant as Pau Ortez and Asvel got their EL spots for granted definately had a role with that situation. (just as I'm always whineing, they're not some superpowers with hordes of fans to be entitled to such treatment from Uleb).
Eventhough both teams were priviledged and still have the benefits of "positive brands" with EL fans, but that's basicaly futile as they're not in here anymore - and all the attention EL was investing in those two teams in the long term doesn't matter - on the long term it's the brand of French league => French teams in general, that pays the most when a random EL fan decides if he should watch a Nancy - Siena game on TV or rather switch to some other programme instead Uleb went with branding individual teams instead. You can imagine how uneffective that is with Fortitudo, Benetton, Virtus, Estudiantes, Paok, Hapoel, Ulker, Alba, Cibona, Asvel, Pau not being among EL teams anymore after all that attention and priviledge was being granted to them. EL isn't NBA nor it will ever be, so you can't apply to the same marketing principles for gods sake. Not to mention most teams tend to change their names twice per decade or so and some of those become a complete enigma to even some relatively loyal EL fans, this way people are surprised realising Caja is actualy ex- Tau Ceramica How much worse could Uleb's central marketing strategy fail??! and yeah, revenues of course depend on that to a large degree...

This was a decade of lost oppurtunities for Uleb. And as an union of european LEAGUES, they should at least aknowledge they've got to market the leagues instead of individual teams, it pays of more in both directions. I do aknowledge missing Real, Barca, Panathinaikos, CSKA, Maccabi, Tau or some others would hurt on short term, but hey, let's assume those got wide enough fan support they won't be able to stay out of euro-bball top notch competition for extended periods... in case they wouldn't have the fan support => tickes revenues + merchandising etc. well, I guess few teams must be doing it better than they are, which leads us to raw evolution where the best survive. Right now some of them aren't even trying and chose to rely on their "big brother's" income instead of building a long-term sustainable financial situation the way Maccabi, or some clubs to a bit smaller degree, did.

And that's basicaly why Champions league has become what it is, letting the competition decide instead of some Luxembourg and Swiss officials that never got the chance to surpass the bball level of some behind the god's back Bosnian village U12 selections and yet they've got a saying on which team is entitled to playing in euroleague in relation to some dumb marketing principles, that obviously can't apply as effective to european basketball, no matter (or maybee even due to) being paragraph to paragraph by the school book.


Long term it's either, market the teams and go NBA-way or market the leagues(=league's teams; f.e. Spanish, French, German, Adriatic, Russian, Turkish) and go ChampionsLeague-way. As "euro NBA" wont' have a chance for Oly-Pao; Fener-Gala, Virtus-Fortitudo, Cibona-Olimpija, Partizan-Zvezda rivalries and basicaly isn't within the European concept of sports, the answer is pretty clear.

[Panathinaikos bc]

Not to mention most teams tend to change their names twice per decade or so and some of those become a complete enigma to even some relatively loyal EL fans, this way people are surprised realising Caja is actualy ex- Tau Ceramica How much worse could Uleb's central marketing strategy fail??

Ι agree.
Here is a link with the different names of Caja in past decades.
The club's name sponsor is the Basque bank Caja Laboral.

Can you imagine Maccabi called as Nokia tel aviv? Or Panathinaikos as Philips Athens? There's no way !!!

The same thing has happened with Pallacanestro (means basket) Treviso which is known as Benneton Treviso.

My opinion is that serious teams protecting their names. Names have a background history and they should be respect it.

If I am not mistaken Maccabi means hammer, Makkav, the Hammer of Tel aviv. I really like the sound.
Even if that name came out since the Macabees extinguished the Greek persecution. (I guess that refers to Thessaloníki years)

P.A.O. stands for ''Panathinaikos Athletic Union'' and the composite word Pan-athinaikos means something like all the Athenians. Ιt comes from the word PAN which means something like ALL EVERYONE etc , and the word ATHINAIKOS which means Athens Athenians.

It would be very interesting to make a new Thread (I don't know if already exist) with the history of our team names. How we got them and what are their meanings.

It would be also nice if we were calling our teams with their nick names.
Panathinaikos nick name is Trifylli which means shamrocks clovers.

[Billy Bounce]

I believe Uleb really missed with their marketing principles. Consequently, they're not optimising their revenues and are not being able to provide any larger portion of € from TV rights for various teams, the way champion league for example does.

Uleb believes their incomes from TV rights will be optimised by marketing same chosen teams, as the potential newbies won't achieve the effect on TV audience (potentialy sponsors and further) the old teams would have.
By that, they consider Unicaja Malaga as more beneficial to various incomes they get, compared to f.e. Bilbao.
I firmly believe, they are dead wrong here, whoever is in charge of this strategy should be fired long ago.

My guess that EL picks team based on arena criteria , it gives Malaga (with 11k arena) an edge over Valencia and Gran Canaria. Explains both Prokom A-license and unexplained preference of French & Italian teams over Russian ones.

For example Maccabi got 40-45% of its income from selling tickets, VIP boxes, etc thanks to its 11k arena. So it certainly gives an extra validation of this arena criteria as pre-requisite of building a healthy EL club.

The problem is that overspending clubs ( CSKA, Barca, Real, Greek duo, Efes, Fener ) sky-rocket players prices , forces the other clubs to spend more money they earn just to be competitive. Needless to say, it pretty mush renders arena criteria useless.

I dunno if EL will succeed with their financial fair play , but in perspective it will make EL healthy & stable & more competitive .

[Joško Poljak Fan]

I'm not in general against everything euroleague has come up with. 10k arena, although it's a bit harsh on some teams is imo a right path. I personaly might consider 8k venues or such as suitable, but hey, everything can't be done my way :P

Valencia's arena is just under the 10k if I remember correctly and nonetheless, Lagun Aro's arena in San Sebastian for example was packed today vs. Real, must've been way over 10k attendance by sight (not to mention they've won), Basque's are obviously really into basketball... and few more teams from ACB don't have the same troubles with capacity as Barca does for example :P if Lagun Aro passes Unicaja in the competition, I can't see a reason Unicaja should be protected, that's all...
If Uleb decides 10k arena is a minimum, than I'll support them, but in that case needless to say I'd consider licences even that more useless. If a team is strong enough to qualify for euroleague, has the capacity and fulfills the EL financial criteria, than they definately shouldn't be banned from it.

There will always be (and always has been) overspending clubs in basketball I believe, there is not many chances to fight that.

I am waiting for the details of euroleague's financial fair play, but in general I assume it a step in the right direction.

[Panathinaikos bc]

CSKA should play here.
AMAZING ARENA !!!!!!!!!

They have to paint the seats though to their colours. RED.

[Cibos]

Why would 0ynamo let them paint it? Its primarily arena for KHL club Dynamo..

[Joško Poljak Fan]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8480KM20120509

"On the other hand, we are reluctant to expand the competition to 32 clubs because we have to protect its quality and we've assessed that 24 is the optimum number."

With all those team from Spain that got all it takes to play in EL, Khimki, Unics, Spartak, Lokomotiv, Rytas, Galatasaray (+I believe in a while more Turkish teams), Germany sooner or later pitching for 2nd EL team... I can't really understand that point of view.
With the top 4 "expansion" teams (5th Spanish, 2nd Russian, 3rd Turkish and 2nd Lithuanian) the quality of euroleague as it is would actualy increase to an extent. Sure the other presumed 4 might neutralise or even decrease that change of level, but none of that seems drastic enough to me to actualy consider staying at 24 teams due to quality drop that barely is one.

[pohani komarac]

i see jordi masterplan to raise basketball is working....lot empty seats for bigest basketball games of season...itresting, when basketball by some people here "was not so much popular" like these days such games were loaded. way to go jordi, give us some more of your ideas

[Billy Bounce]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8480KM20120509

With all those team from Spain that got all it takes to play in EL, Khimki, Unics, Spartak, Lokomotiv, Rytas, Galatasaray (+I believe in a while more Turkish teams), Germany sooner or later pitching for 2nd EL team... I can't really understand that point of view.
With the top 4 "expansion" teams (5th Spanish, 2nd Russian, 3rd Turkish and 2nd Lithuanian) the quality of euroleague as it is would actual increase to an extent. Sure the other presumed 4 might neutralise or even decrease that change of level, but none of that seems drastic enough to me to actually consider staying at 24 teams due to quality drop that barely is one.

The problem is that the pool of EL level players is limited and , to my sorrow, it isn't growing. Ex-Balkan states & Lithuania used to be EL "factories", but not anymore. This is especially true for guards. Centers are still produced (Gasols, Pekovic, Valancunas, Mozgov, Asik...), but are usually lured by big money ( that no EL club can compete with) to fill the void over the ocean.

Expanding EL to 32 teams will result the price of top level players to raise ( more clubs to compete for them) , certainly not adding to the current clubs' financial stability. We'll get more teams with Unics/Spartak syndrome : a team with extreme short bench fighting in 2-3 competitions until total exhaustion somewhere mid season...

[pohani komarac]

The problem is that the pool of EL level players is limited and , to my sorrow, it isn't growing. Ex-Balkan states & Lithuania used to be EL "factories", but not anymore. This is especially true for guards. Centers are still produced (Gasols, Pekovic, Valancunas, Mozgov, Asik...), but are usually lured by big money ( that no EL club can compete with) to fill the void over the ocean.

Expanding EL to 32 teams will result the price of top level players to raise ( more clubs to compete for them) , certainly not adding to the current clubs' financial stability. We'll get more teams with Unics/Spartak syndrome : a team with extreme short bench fighting in 2-3 competitions until total exhaustion somewhere mid season...

balkan states and lithuania have something like about 100 players at the moment who play at very high level to decent level all over world

only difrece betwen now and then, there are no much "stars" aroud when it comes to balkans, but depth of average players is still there

this season our clubs were in some crisis wich is ormal since our clubs lost to manny players in last few seasons left our clubs. today even average and below average players like andric, stojic, samardziski, stipanovic, stipcevic etc. play sowhere