Ness Ziona informed Fiba that it may not be able to participate in the knockout games in the European Cup • Holon and Gilboa / Galil jointly organize a charter flight to deal with the costs • All details in the shadow of the imminent extension of the closure at Ben Gurion Airport
Hapoel Gilboa / Galil players.
A blow to Israeliness
Photo:
Alan Shiver
Holon players
Photo:
Alan Shiver
In the shadow of estimates that the closure of Ben Gurion Airport will be extended beyond this coming Sunday (7.3), the Israeli teams that play in the various European factories are in big trouble.
Urbani Ness Ziona, which is due to play on March 23-25 in the European Cup bubble in the city of Dan Boss in the Netherlands, is considering not participating in the games.
Israel Today has learned that the club's management, in cooperation with the basketball association, has in recent days sent a letter to Fiba announcing that if the closure of Ben Gurion Airport continues, the team may be forced to waive participation because it cannot bear the economic cost of a private flight estimated at 80 A thousand dollars.
Hapoel Holon and Hapoel Gilboa / Galil also suffer from a similar problem.
Holon, which plays in both the Champions League and the Balkan League, has made great efforts and has been assisted by various factors so that it can take a private flight to Italy for the game against Brindisi on Wednesday.
It currently appears that Holon and Gilboa / Galil will lease a joint flight at the beginning of next week.
The flight will land in Istanbul or Sofia and from there Holon will continue to play on Tuesday against Topash Bourse in the Champions League and on Thursday will play in Macedonia against Komanovo in the Balkans.
At this time Hapoel Gilboa / Galil will probably play two games on Tuesday in Bulgaria against Bru and on Thursday in Macedonia against TFT Skopje, after which the teams will repeat the same flight.
Maccabi Tel Aviv, which has been traveling all season on private flights to Euroleague games, has not had any problems traveling to away games, but we have already seen that some of its rivals have a problem wanting to come to Israel, so the two home games against Andulo Zero and Moscow slip through.
In football, Maccabi Tel Aviv received assistance from the UEFA throughout the organization and the flight to Ukraine, but in basketball it does not seem that both FIBA and the management of the Balkan League will assist the various teams in financing the heavy costs.
