VTB United League President Sergey Kushchenko took part in a panel discussion at the Expo Basket 2024 forum.
Chelyabinsk is hosting the VIII annual conference «Expo Basket 2024. Basketball business of Russia» from November 14 to 17, . The 8th business conference on the development of the Russian basketball industry gathered more than 300 industry experts.
Kushchenko took part in the panel discussion “Creating a system/pyramid in a sports club”. Speakers also included Russian Basketball Federation President Andrey Kirilenko, PARMA President Sergey Boguslavsky sports director of Lokomotiv Kuban youth projects Ilya Kuznetsov, first deputy of Zenit general director Valery Malofeev, HC Traktor general director Ivan Savin, deputy general director of the State Autonomous Institution of the Moscow Region “CSP № 3” Dmitry Fedoseev.
The VTB United League President also participated in the Friendly game as part of Evgeny Gomelsky team.
Sergey Kushchenko, VTB United League President :
– One of the main goals of the VTB United League clubs today is to educate and developthe quality of high level players, who after passing through all stages of the training system and the VTB Youth League, will become part of the main team.
Lokomotiv Kuban has set a good example in recent years, with 6 academy students playing at the highest level in the VTB United League for the team. They create competition for internationals, they are in demand in League and are naturally called up to the Russian national team.
Loko has found that golden mean between developing players and fighting for the top spots in the League. In some places we even had to sacrifice results in the short distance, but it paid off.
We hope that the development philosophy followed by Lokomotiv will work in MBA-MAI, where the management is also looking to the future, attracting the team’s youth to the main team. We can also mention Zenit, CSKA, PARMA and Nizhny. Clubs that also give results and prepare players to play for VTB League teams. 90 percent of the national team players of various ages play for VTB League clubs.
Most importantly, in a period when there are no international competitions, the VTB League teams should give young talent a chance to develop and help them reach a high professional level by organizing quality competition.
