FIBA European Champions Cup and EuroLeague history

L'Equipe is widely credited for birthing the idea of a European club competition, first and foremost, in European football. Basketball was soon to latch onto the quickly successful idea, and the idea was discussed by FIBA, during the 1957 FIBA European Championship in Bulgaria. Then FIBA Secretary General William Jones, set up a commission consisting of Borislav Stanković (Yugoslavia), Raimundo Saporta (Spain), Robert Busnel (France), Miloslav Kriz (Czechoslovakia), and Nikolai Semashko (Soviet Union), to come up with a proposal.

The commission invited Europe's national basketball federations to send their national domestic league champions, L'Equipe donated a trophy, and in 1958, the FIBA European Cup For Men's Champion Clubs, or, FIBA European Champions Cup, started.

Clubs from Eastern Europe (from the former Soviet bloc) dominated the early years. They not only won the first six editions of the competition (three times ASK Riga, twice CSKA Moscow, and once Dinamo Tbilisi), but also managed to reach the finals four times in the first six years (twice Academic, once Dinamo Tbilissi, and ASK Riga).

2.18 m (7'2") tall Soviet player Jānis Krūmiņš, was the man in the middle for ASK Riga's initial three-peat, as he was an unmatched dominant force inside.

In 1961, things began to change. The main Western European basketball club, Real Madrid, started to show signs of ambition, and was eliminated only after the semifinal, by ASK Riga.

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