Dejan Kamenjasevic, the general manager of Dubai, spoke at a press conference regarding the club’s entry into the ABA League.
Starting next season, the ABA League will expand from 14 to 16 teams. In addition to Dubai, Spartak from Subotica will also join the regional competition. First, Djordje Djokovic, the executive director of the club, addressed the media, followed by Dejan Kamenjasevic.
“At the outset, I would like to express my gratitude for the warm welcome from the management of the ABA League. It is a great honor and pleasure for us to have successfully concluded this long and sometimes painful process and to become part of the ABA family. This represents a great privilege for us, knowing that the league has produced numerous young talents who have later gone on to join the strongest clubs in the world,” Djordje Djokovic stated at the beginning before continuing.
“Dubai represents a significant leap forward in the expansion and development of basketball. We can talk about Dubai as a major brand behind our club, but I would like to thank Dejan Kamenjasevic, the co-founder and general manager of the Dubai Basketball Club. Without his vision, a wild vision that goes back seven or eight years, this would never have happened. All aspects of the Dubai Basketball Club are positive and sports-oriented, and we are here primarily to showcase Dubai in the best possible light.
We want to demonstrate that our project is good for basketball, good for the region. Speaking on behalf of myself and Dejan, we are involved in this project primarily out of love for this sport. We want to do something that is beneficial for basketball, both for the ABA League and for European basketball. This project is for the long term, and we will not stop here with just this one project. Regarding the ABA League, it was a very long process, where we had discussions with the management and later with all the club owners of the ABA League.
We owe them a great deal of gratitude for welcoming us into their family and for us becoming part of a great league from every aspect. We are confident that we will contribute, both on the sporting and business levels of the ABA League. We will try to attract a large number of partners and sponsors, as well as expand the market of the ABA League to the Middle East, and we are confident that this project will bring many good things,” Djokovic concluded.
Then Dejan Kamenjasevic took the floor.
“First of all, I want to talk about the facts. I thank the management of the ABA League for giving us this opportunity and those who supported us, but also those who had doubts. I am confident that they will no longer have them. This has been a long and difficult journey. Perhaps the greatest success is that we, as Dubai, have now entered Europe. They thought I was crazy and stupid, maybe now I’m just crazy. I want to talk about misconceptions. This is our first public appearance, and during the time we remained silent, others spoke. Now is the time for us to provide the true information,” began the general manager of the club from the United Arab Emirates, and then continued:
“We will play in the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai. Not in Belgrade, as the information was circulating. As for the budget, we are not bringing in Walter Tavares, Mike James, we have a business model. We will be competitive, that’s for sure. We will have a modest budget, it’s important for us to learn, to gain experience. That’s the goal, to enter Europe. Competitively, our goal is not to win the ABA League. Even hypothetically, if we were to win the league, we would not enter the EuroLeague or the EuroCup. We believe we can build a good team, to learn and establish its identity.”
Kamenjasevic also touched on logistical problems and fans.
“Dubai is a five-hour flight from Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana. Many tourists from here go, similarly, teams can come. That’s one trip per season, but nobody wondered how Dubai, which has to travel constantly, will cope. From that perspective, we are certainly at a loss.
Of course, we cannot have fans like Partizan or Crvena Zvezda. Such comparisons are not fair. We believe we cannot have such fans because 90 percent of people in Dubai are foreigners, they love basketball, they just haven’t had their team until now. We want to build and grow. Of course, we don’t compare ourselves to Partizan and Crvena Zvezda, but we can compare ourselves to others because not every arena in the ABA League is full.”
He also spoke about the importance of finally taking the first concrete step in the club’s development.
“Our goal has always been the ABA League. Of course, commercially and sports-wise, it’s important for us to play in two leagues. It’s still an open question, but this is an ABA League topic, but there is definitely an interest in playing in two leagues. By entering the ABA League, we have shown that we exist, that we are not just some cloud spinning around.”
Finally, he commented on who will be the head coach.
“We have an idea, we have a person, but everyone is under contract, and we cannot say who that person is now.”