Superleague gets the system and the roster

The meeting of Superleague A Board took place in RBF office today. The Board approved the system of the new season and the teams list.

Season 2009-2010 will feature 9 clubs: CSKA Moscow, Khimki, UNICS Kazan, Spartak St. Petersburg, Triumph Lyubertsy, Dinamo Moscow, Lokomotiv Krasnodar, Enisey Krasnoyarsk and Krasnye Kryliya Samara. The teams will play two legs in the regular season. Quarterfinal series will be played in best-of-5 format, semifinal, 3rd place and final series – best-of-7 format. The schedule will be revealed later.

The Board also approved the systems for Junior Teams Championship, JBL and Russian Cup. Four best teams from the previous season (CSKA, Khimki, UNICS and Spartak) will begin their quest for the Cup from quarterfinal stage, while the other five Superleague A teams plus Metallurg-Universitet Magnitogorsk, TEMP-SUVZ Revda and Sibirtelecom-Lokomotiv Novosibirsk will start playing in 1/8 finals. Our team was drawn to the same part of bracket as Enisey and Krasnye Kryliya.

CSKA VP Natalia Furaeva told us about some nuances of the meeting.

“The Board approved the system proposed by us. Clubs agreed that to play 3 legs is not profitable both in financial and sports terms. It could happen that the leading teams after getting big points advantage would lose the interest of playing in third leg. We would get more away games and uncertain schedule which would negatively influence our budgets. More playoff games will be more attractive for TV also. By the way some clubs are allowed to play even though they still have some debts, but the deadline for them is September 15.”