Big disappointment for Villeneuve-d'Ascq and the French supporters.
We will still have to wait to see a Final Four of the women's Euroleague basketball - the most prestigious basketball club competition on the Old Continent - be held in France.
Qualified for this European “four-way final” for the first time in its history, the northern club had applied to host this event which will take place from April 12 to 14.
The leaders had proposed to organize the matches at the Pévèle Arena in Orchies.
The hall, with a capacity of 5,000 seats, was notably used for the final stages of the women's Euro basketball tournament in 2013.
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The 202 4 #EuroLeagueWomen Final Four will be held in Mersin, Türkiye 🇹🇷
— EuroLeague Women (@EuroLeagueWomen) March 12, 2024
Finally, the International Basketball Federation (Fiba) announced this Tuesday that it was entrusting the organization to the Mersin club in Turkey.
The Final Four will therefore take place at the Servet Tazegul Arena, with a capacity of approximately 7,500 seats, in this city in southern Turkey.
In the semi-final, the players of Rachid Méziane – also European champion with Belgium – will face USK Prague (Czech Republic) where the French international Valériane Ayayi plays.
The other poster of the last four will pit Fenerbahçe (Turkey) coached by Valérie Garnier, where the international Marième Badiane now plays, against its neighbor - and host of the competition - Mersin, where the former tricolor Olivia Epoupa plays.
We have to go back to 2003 to find traces of the last Final Four organized in France, in Bourges, also the last French club to have reached the last four, in 2014, before the epic of Villeneuve-d'Ascq.
Valenciennes is the last French club to have won the Women's Euroleague, in 2004.