OK, a bit of a thread for this. Firstly: I wanted Partizan. Let's get that over with. But admittedly Loko or UNICS deserved more by results and VTB is the 2nd best domestic league in the continent and is strong enough to deserve 3 teams in EL.
I get the financial reasons behind a Zenit move. As in big fanbase, big city, big money, big market. And EL absolutely has to think financial for survival now. My issue is giving a 1 year wildcard to Zenit won't really make you benefit from Gazprom, fans or St Petersburg market.
That would require a long term thing. One question would be whether they could renew that shitty Russian broadcast deal now with a bigger club in Zenit relative to UNICS or Loko. The biggest question is what would Zenit do, if anything, to belong to #EuroLeague competitively?
Their initial signings this offseason don't even scream ambition for EuroCup. They need to completely invest big now or they won't belong to #EuroLeague and finish last. All 3 of Partizan, UNICS or Loko are in much better shape competitively. If Zenit's going to botch this up...
Then it's a big shame just for a 1-year wildcard. If we miss the eternal derby, Trinchieri, Marinkovic and so on and so forth at EL for 1 shitty season by Zenit without having the financial benefits due to... Well just having them for 1 season, then it's a disaster.
Finally, I rooted for Partizan to get the wildcard but as I said in the first tweet, UNICS or Loko probably deserved more and it's such bad news for them that a 3rd VTB team got it but it wasn't even them.
Zenit better build a competitive squad.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.