Euroleague participants for 2012/13

The Euroleague have published the names of the teams taking part in next season’s competition and once again the current Spanish League champions Barça Regal, who finished third in last year’s Final Four in Istanbul, will be present. Real Madrid, Caja Laboral and Unicaja are the other ACB teams involved, but neither Valencia Basket or Gescrap Bilbao who had been hoping for a wildcard, were invited and will play in the Eurocopa.

The Euroleague have given a wildcard to Alba Berlin, “taking into account the importance of the German market”, Bennet Cantú and Unics Kazan. The Germans are guaranteed a group place, whilst the other two will have to get through the qualifying stages.

The Euroleague also decided to give an A licence to EA7 Emporio Armani of Milan for the next two years in place of Lottomatica Roma, as well as two B licences to the Turkish club Beskitas, Chalon from France and Cedevita Zagreb.

One of the new rules for this season will be that the Top 16 will no longer be four groups of four, but two groups of eight and teams qualifying for this stage will thus play eight more games than in previous years.