Euroleague: Russian clubs erased from the shelves, Monaco moves away from the playoffs
Russian Euroleague clubs (Zenit Saint Petersburg, Kazan and CSKA Moscow) and Eurocup (Krasnodar) have been permanently withdrawn from the two competitions organized by Euroleague Basketball for the 2021/22 season, and their results cancelled, announced the ‘eg Tuesday.
Due to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army on February 24, the body decided on February 28 to suspend Russian clubs from its competitions. On Tuesday, it decided to cancel the results of the Russian teams engaged in its competitions “because the situation in Ukraine is not developing favourably”. As a result of this decision, the final classification of the Euroleague regular season will be established after the last matches in mid-April with 15 teams and not 18, and 28 matches played for each team, and not 34. Some clubs in the race to qualify for the play-offs, promised to the first eight of the regular season, are thus more injured than others, like Monaco, which had won four of its five matches already played against Russian teams , or Fenerbahçe (three wins and one loss), unlike Bayern Munich who had not won any match against Russian clubs (three losses).
In the new Euroleague classification, FC Barcelona retains the lead, with 19 wins, one more than Real Madrid. With 11 victories on the clock, Monaco finds itself in the fight with Bayern Munich (12 victories), Maccabi Tel Aviv (11 victories), the two clubs however having played two games less than Monaco, Red Star Belgrade ( 11 wins) and Vitoria (10 successes) for access to the play-offs. There are four days left in the regular season, as well as eight games postponed due to Covid-19 cases.