RIGA - Aivars Lembergs, the oil tycoon and president of Ventspils basketball club, has publicly spoken out against the Latvian Basketball Union's (LBS) plans to limit the number of foreign basketball players that each team can field in the Latvian Basketball League.
Lembergs claimed at a press conference that the new plans would effectively ruin the Ventspils team. The LBS wants to bring the LBL into line with the Union of European Basketball Leagues' (ULEB) rules on quotas for foreign players.
A maximum of three foreign players (non-FIBA) per team is permitted per game in ULEB games, and in Latvia only two non-FIBA players are allowed per game. But there are currently no restrictions on how many players from FIBA countries can play per game in the LBL, allowing teams with the most financial muscle, such as Ventspils, to make up the bulk of their squads with high quality players from abroad. Venstpils had five foreigners in its squad last season.
Lembergs' argument is that the new quota system would further dilute the quality of the LBL and hinder Latvian clubs from breaking into the European basketball elite. He added that Ventspils had only played eight "difficult" games in the LBL last season, in addition to 12 high level games in the ULEB cup.
"A club needs to play at least 40 good games each season, and the LBS should not think about how to play dirty with Ventspils, but how to essentially improve the quality and competitiveness of the Latvian basketball championship," Lembergs told journalists.
Lembergs said that Ventspils, which has won the Latvian championship for five years in a row, wanted to successfully participate in the ULEB Cup but complained that because the standard of the LBL is so low, Latvian basketball players do not want to play for the top Latvian teams, such as Ventspils and Skonto.
"If the LBS does not want Ventspils to participate in the ULEB Cup, then it just has to say so and we will not put out a team. But we'll field another team in the LBL - Ventspils University team - which will be made up of only young students," Lembergs said.
But Ilze Laca, director of the LBL, said that the planned changes were only intended to help improve the quality of homegrown talent in Latvia and had nothing to do with challenging Ventspils' supremacy.
"Last season we cancelled all limits on FIBA players in the LBL and limited non-FIBA players to two per game, but we saw how it seriously affected our league. So we want to limit the number of foreigners, both FIBA and non-FIBA, to three per game. Otherwise teams can field all foreigners every game. We have seen how this system hinders the development of Latvian players and the Latvian national team," Laca said. "But we're not proposing a limit on the number of foreigners per squad. In theory a team could still be made up of only foreigners."
Lembergs has threatened to quit the LBL and play in the Lithuanian league instead if the changes are implemented, and hinted that Ventspils has already approached the Lithuanians in regard to this idea. The council of the basketball federation is expected to take a final decision by June 9.
