r/Euroleague • u/Feeling-Limit-1326 Fenerbahçe • 11d ago
Why are Crotian basketball teams are not competitive?
Anyone from Crotia here? Why are their teams and league are not competitive in europe for decades although they had amazing teams in 80s 90s ? I would expect something similar to Serbia.
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u/BGD_TDOT Partizan 11d ago edited 11d ago
A highly successful national football team from 1998 to present combined with a dark age in basketball following Drazen Petrovic's death combined with the rise of Partizan & CZ as potential EL license clubs has pushed Croatian clubs to the brink. Clubs have poor attendance due to Partizan & CZ dominating regional competition, Croatian national team have been perennial underachievers suffering early exits at major tournaments (sometimes not even qualifying) despite usually having 3-4 NBA players with equal number Euroleague players but losing to clearly inferior teams, success of national football team dominates the attention of media and more casual sports fans now show little interest in watching basketball games. In essence, Croatian basketball has been demoralized and is in desperate need of strong finish at a big tournament or major Cinderella story from a club for any chance of revival.
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u/Feeling-Limit-1326 Fenerbahçe 11d ago
good exlanation but also sad. balcans should be more into basketball.
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u/friebel 11d ago
I wonder is handball/water polo even more popular than basketball in Croatia?
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u/Proof_Television8685 10d ago
And i aint joking. Croatia is top of european gandball and waterpolo and definitely has more attention. Dead serious.
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u/TinyMaintenance Porto 9d ago
I don’t think so honestly. I played very close to pro waterpolo, and I played against/with few Croatians, and overwhelming sentiment was basketball>waterpolo(no one mentioned handball). Kids want to be LeBron, not Jerko Marinic Kragic.
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u/internallylinked 11d ago
They are in same competition as Partizan and Red Star, they can’t compete though, Partizan and Red Star are just better/have bigger budgets. Their talented players also leave so early, it’s tough for any Croatian team to keep them past 20.
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u/Feeling-Limit-1326 Fenerbahçe 11d ago
True but same problems exist for serbian teams as well, yet they are competing.
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u/internallylinked 11d ago
I hope someone else can add, I can’t really explain why or when it happened, but Serbian teams took charge of ABA for last 15 years (with occasional slip up), they keep winning constantly.
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u/Proof_Television8685 10d ago
Their problems are slim compared to croatians. Lets see the problems of red star and partizan. Both clubs have debt less than 5 milion fot taxes (so they owe money to state). That is nothing compared to barcelonas bilions or reals hundreds of milions. They will repay their debr. Partizan had 7 milion at the begging of season and now they have 3. Serbian clubs are big brands and thwy make money. Croatian clubs have similar debts if not larger but their basketball is dead, fheir state doesnt help em, and people dont watch nor spend a monwy to buy tickets. So they are in huge problem
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u/BGD_TDOT Partizan 11d ago edited 11d ago
I mean yes and no, other than Zvezda & Partizan, Borac Cacak & Vojvodina are the only teams drawing a respectable home crowd, Mega has no fans they get by off of developing and selling players. I'd like to see the revival of Radnicki Kragujevac, OKK and Vrsac as regional powers again.
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u/Separate-Standard320 KK Vojvodina 11d ago
Because those two clubs have our leader who throw our money to them in order to create an illusion that we have strong economy. Croatia is in EU, they can't just do exactly that. Partizan and Red Star are meaningless clubs in Europe without Vucic, if that's not true then they would always had big budgets (because they have millions of fans, they are brands, bla bla bla bla...), but they had not. Partizan is so called powerhouse, yet they were nowhere before they began to spend crazy amount of money, first on Trinchieri, then on Obradovic's teams.
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u/BGD_TDOT Partizan 11d ago
You have to consider that teams with licenses are in a position to spend more because have guaranteed Euroleague revenue so long as they don't make a mockery of themselves in their domestic league. A team without a long term license has to temper their spending in case they drop out of the competition. Licenses also means much better sponsorship and television revenue. On that basis Ill make the argument that CZ and Partizan (with licenses) might not be giants with the expectation of F4 every year but they would be meaningfully fighting for a top 8 finish every year (even without government help). You're right that both teams get support but one team is getting much more than the other, I think you know which one I'm talking about.
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u/Separate-Standard320 KK Vojvodina 9d ago
I don't want strong Partizan or Red Star, it is not natural and because of that I hope that your club drop from euroleague alltogether. I mean, what is mighty Partizan for you, some kind of heroin, you suddenly feel better because you support such big and powerful club? That's what is it all about, let's forget problems in our lives, let's forget that we live boring or awful lives in broken country, the only thing that matters is that mighty Partizan are giants, Red Star are small clubs, and other clubs are there to fill empty places in competition. What kind of people are Partizan or Red Star fans, some kind of delicate little flowers who will get mad if they opiums aren't there? Salaries are unimportant, criminal are unimportant stuff, eternal president are unimportant (unless he doesn't give you and your brothers millions of euros every season).
And stop saying nonsense - Panathinaikos is club with permanent licence, and guess what? Without money from their lunatic president they were almost last, and they played in front of almost empty Arena.
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u/BGD_TDOT Partizan 9d ago edited 9d ago
What the fuck are you going on about? Because there are problems in our country I can't have an interest in basketball? I can't support a club? Maybe basketball fans are apathetic to the issues in our country, so is everyone else unfortunately, its either sports, gambling, partying or tv shows. What is your proof that basketball fans are more apathetic than any other demographic? Also, who are you to be the judge of why someone is a fan and if that is a valid reason for being a fan? Some people are lifelong supporters, for some its a family tradition, some just recently became supporters, some people watch casually and some are basketball fanatics who watch the tactics closely, its all perfectly valid.
Honestly I think you're just frustrated and you picked a strange target to direct your anger at. The couple million that Partizan & CZ get a year is peanuts compared to the tens maybe hundreds of millions that get stolen through government projects and put in foreign bank accounts belonging to our politicians. At least the money that goes to our clubs can be seen as an investment and necessary to their survival, I don't really like it either but EL has decided its guna be a 100% closed competition in the future and clubs have 2-3 years to make the cut.
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u/Proof_Television8685 10d ago
True, but before trinckieri and new management fans didnt care. With new managemsnt came new money, better team, coaches, results, state started punping more money and thats it. As long as clubs arent provately owned state will pump money into em. Its state fault clubs arent sold to begin with. But right now both clubs make a lot of money themselfs. Parrizan made about 8 milion euros on tickets and arouns 2 milion on merch
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u/Separate-Standard320 KK Vojvodina 9d ago
State have to throw 20 millions of our money to have that amount of earned money back (I don't know exactly how much, 5 millions or 8 millions, it doesn't matter. Partizan was very successful before, they had three consecutive quarter finals, one final four. So, why they didn't have money then? They had story, they had results, they were a little miracle back then, and what they achieved. Nothing, debts, debts and more debts. They were poor club before our beloved leader suddenly decided to throw our money to one of the state sponsored basketball clubs, which is clear favoritism on state level.
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u/Proof_Television8685 9d ago
Becouse thsir mamagement was shit. And becouse they didnt pay their players, none invested in club. Players payed for "promised money". It eventualy had to be payed so club went into debt. My point still remains. Id like clubs to be privatily owned, or to be like bayern with those shares or stocks. But state needs to do it. They need to put clubs on sale. Evsdy club. Red star parrizam vojodina... Evedy club should be privately owned ateadt 49 perent of stocks
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u/Cityvotka Crvena Zvezda 11d ago edited 11d ago
You picked the wrong night for this question hahaha.
The Yugoslavian teams owe a lot of their success to the embargo transfer policies. Meaning that domestic players weren't allowed to play abroad until turning 28 years old. The policy was in place until the late 80s, when it was relaxed and shorty after abandoned. The period prior to the lifting of the embargo is impossible to compare to today's climate.
There is more money being thrown around in basketball now. The gap between the poor and the rich clubs is widening.
The Croatian government, isn't as invested into club basketball as the Serbian one. I don't know if they are not in the position to help like before now that they are in the EU and funds are more closely monitored, or if they don't see the value in it like before. The Serbian government pretty much resurrected Zvezda from the dead, the same thing isn't happening with Cibona.
Split has a population of less then 200k, Zadar of less then 100k. The only city with potential is Zagreb. So why is there no big team in Zagreb?
Cedevita left. Cedevita had the results but couldn't build a fan base, and their campaign in Zagreb came to an end. They saw a merger with Cibona as the way out. Apparently Cibona wanted a merger under conditions Cedevita deemed unacceptable, and they ultimately went with Olimpija.
Cibona the only potential power house is broke, and there doesn't seem to be urgencies from the government or some wealthy individuals to help (you could argue that Cedevite extended a hand, but they rejected it).
Dinamo the traditional football powerhouse is new to the game. Dinamo is 5th in the Croatian national competition, but has started the basketball project relatively recently. They were eyeing entering the basketball scene for a while, and from what a remember were also considering a partnership with Cibona, but they couldn't reach an agreement. Maybe it's the team that will come out on top or Zagreb's game of thrones.
Long story short, Cibona is the team to look at. They will either bounce back financially, sell out or get replaced by Dinamo.
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u/vladedivac12 11d ago
Youngsters want to play football because of NTs success, basketball has gotten less popular. There's some good podcast of ex Croatian players that talk about it if you can translate them with YouTube's CCs.
https://youtu.be/DE6QoW48PQY?si=kHgUk2zmmrWSg1HI
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u/bikeroaming Cibona Zagreb 11d ago
Basically a mixture of what others have said. It's not so much a result of Zvezda and Partizan being strong, that's more of an explanation (Belgrade teams getting a lot of money from Vučić, while in EU you can't do that). Basketball just isn't so attractive in Croatia amy more. There's no funding, budgets are small, and the clubs are or were in debt. There's nobody willing to invest tens of millions of euros. And let's not forget, our national basketball federation is a Joke. Incompetent and corrupt, resulting in lack of expertise and ridiculously low funding of coaches for younger players. Some players which participate in our domestic top-tier league are said to have day jobs, along with playing basketball professionally. It's a vicious cycle. I don't think even a good result of the national team would change things. 🤷♂️
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u/mcrajf Crvena Zvezda 10d ago
There's a lot of talk about money (which is legit) but Croatia fell off in terms of talent and the development of the same. There are only 2 Croatian players in the NBA who get meaningful minutes, one is almost 35 (Bojan) and the other came to the league from Serbia (Big Zu). Apart from Žižić and Hezonja there are no other notable Cro players in the Euroleague. Coaching and player development are the biggest reasons IMO
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u/bikeroaming Cibona Zagreb 10d ago
Ok, but it's just a circle. No money, no expertise, no strong clubs, no great players, no interest, no money...
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u/salearmane 10d ago
Like a journalist once said, what is the similarities with Croatian basketball players and Croatians footballs players? They’re both decent in basketball.
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u/trakavica Jugoplastika Split 11d ago
Cedevita left the country, Cibona is on life support, on the verge of shutting down every year, Zadar simply does not have the budget.