On Thursday, the Executive Committee meeting of the association will be held at the “Basketball House” in Kaunas, where participants will be introduced to the recent changes.
The meeting participants will make a decision regarding the date of the extraordinary election conference and the procedures and regulations for the upcoming new presidential elections.
According to the statutes, the vice president of the association – LKL leader Remigijus Milašius – was appointed as the chairman of the Executive Committee, who is expected to receive the temporary president’s regalia on Thursday.
The 68-year-old businessman, who has been successfully leading the LKL since 2013, is considered the main candidate to become the long-term flag bearer of Lithuanian basketball.
“The recent commotion that happened was really unexpected,” Remigijus Milašius said on the eve of the LKL season. “Everything is happening at a cosmic speed, maybe the time has come, but let’s not forget that the Women’s European Championship (in 2027 in Lithuania) is ahead. Today I was scared by Rasa (Liuimienė – LKL general director), who said the championship will be in June, although I thought it would be in September. I know situations where certain funds have not been signed. How can we organize it? Of course, our team here is not against helping, because such things are done with KMT. There is no horror. There are other issues that need to be discussed not today and not here. How will we look, what is the situation? I have participated in such situations more than once, although you do not know everything. I unofficially participated in every election, I was talked to behind closed doors in Palanga. I have already learned that you don’t have time to leave before journalists are waiting and watching at the gas station. We met on Monday with Mindaugas Balčiūnas at 12 o’clock. I am clever – I took him to my company, where there is a nice table. If you want to escape from something, we meet there because the access is complicated. Life will show.”
15min asked R. Milašius what were the biggest problems during M. Balčiūnas’s leadership and what essentially should be changed in the association?
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“A lot needs to be changed, a lot,” said R. Milašius. “I don’t want to elaborate because I haven’t been elected yet. I don’t have anything to tell you yet. I was not distant from what was happening there, I just didn’t attend those meetings. I couldn’t cross the boundaries as a person, which dissatisfied me. Therefore, all our votes were abstentions. There are many things. If you want to have… How many times do we change the legislative base of the LKL? Two, three times? We are more or less adapted to the current period, we have initiative guys. Everyone wants basketball to develop, not to be a mess, so that everything is in a beautiful building, the budget formation is visible.”
15min asked the LKL head which strategist he sees as a possible successor to Rimas Kurtinaitis, who resigned from the national team post yesterday.
But R. Milašius turned the question the other way.
“Everything happened overnight. I don’t know what to hide here – it is what it is,” said R. Milašius. “Many legal issues with Rasa (Liuimienė – LKL general director), the same legal papers in the association. These need to be sorted out, all legal matters resolved. I don’t know how everything will end tomorrow. It’s nonsense that if a person has experience, but temporarily cannot replace you. You can get into traps from which you can’t jump out and escape, you get stuck even deeper. Nobody thinks about that. We have grown people here… Maybe temporarily.”
Does this mean that R. Liuimienė cannot temporarily occupy R. Milašius’s position as LKL president according to the statutes?
“I am not a person who would work forever,” said R. Milašius. “I had plans, LKL has solved a five-year program. I asked if Rasa was ready, she ran away from it, saying she didn’t want to be a civil servant, although she already is one. Jurisdiction must be sorted out, it is not only tied to me. Ten votes with us, much simpler. This needs to be fixed so we don’t live in the jungle. It was like this under Šarūnas Marčiulionis, and we continue to live like this, as you see.”
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