ANNOUNCEMENT

Olympiacos BC has sent the following letter to the Hellenic Basketball Federation.

To the
Hellenic Basketball Federation
Mr. Georgios Vassilakopoulos – President

Piraeus, June 13, 2014

Mr. Vassilakopoulos,

It is with great surprise that on Tuesday, June 10, 2014, we acknowledged the posting on the official Federation web page, of a partial abstract of the insurance contract presented as signed with the Arch insurance company and in regard to the coverage of the players of the National Young Men’s team.

We have asked the Federation in writing on numerous occasions, that is from the June 12, 2012 which was the first time – right after we had conquered the Greek League title – and later on June 27, 2013 and on May 20 and 23 2014, to inform us on the details of the insurance coverage in regard to International players and present us with the insurance contracts having been drafted on that purpose.

On all of the above legitimate inquiries, you presented a deaf ear, denying not within your legal rights and actually without any plausible reason, for more than two years now, to present us the required proof on the sufficient coverage of the international athletes.
It is also indicative that instead of a fruitful dialogue, you chose the tactics of “unofficial leakage”, supporting that it is impossible to give the insurance policies to the teams, since they include classified names and facts.

Needless to say that according to the present insurance legislation, both the athletes, as well as the teams that pay the required insurance fees for the contracts submitted with HEBA, have a legal right to be informed of all the terms of the contracts having been signed in that aspect.

At the same time, you yourself, admitting the insufficient and not thorough insurance coverage of international players, had pledged in the past that the Federation would see that additional contracts would be signed to fully cover for all the athletes of our National Selections. Contracts of the likes have been signed by other European National Basketball Federations, such as the ones of Spain and Belgium.

Of course, in this case, the existence of sufficient coverage by no means is verified by the contract posted on your web page in regard to the National Men’s team. Thus, a simple reading of the said contract is enough to have anyone realize that the said contract does not sufficiently cover not even for the contracts of three of Olympiacos athletes, much more so of the total of athletes playing for the National Young Men’s Selection.

Indicatively, the present contracts of our athletes Papapetrou, Christodoulou and Agravanis provide a total fee of 4,208,667.09 euro for their total duration, while the maximum amount of compensation that the Federation can get for the total of athletes participating the National Young Men’s team amounts to only 644,850.00 euro. Anyway, the said contracts cover for the fees of the athletes for only one contractual year and not its whole duration as it should have.

Despite all the above, and having as sole guidance the protection of the athletes of Olympiacos BC, we ask you for the umpteenth time to present us with the original contracts that have possibly been signed in regard both to the National Young Men’s team, as well as the National Men’s team, so as to finally be informed of the total of terms and the efficacy or not of their insurance coverage in regard to their valid club contracts, in the form submitted with HEBA.

We wish to point out that in regard to the National Men’s Team, since we are in knowledge of no insurance policy whatsoever, it is only logical that we consider our athletes to be without any coverage at all.

For Olympiacos BC
Giorgos Skindilias
Vice President