EYBL Archive





About EYBL

      It’s been 17 years since that day in April, 1998 when seven like-minded persons (they were Victoria Voitovic and Eugene Gurianov from Tallinn, Oleg Okoulov from St. Petersburg, Dmitri Rostkovsky from Moscow, Raimundas Kairis from Kaunas, Aldis Neimanis and Guntis Shenhofs from Riga) met during an international tournament in Tallinn. That meeting gave birth to the idea of creating a system of competitions that would allow youth teams from Baltic countries and Russia to compete with each other on the regular basis. The following years proved usefulness of the original idea.
      While only 6 teams featured in the first season of EYBL, the League has since grown to comprise 180 teams (5 age groups) from 25 countries. We’re often asked questions like ’’What is the basis of the League? How to explain its phenomenon?’’ The answer is quite simple: EYBL is based on COACHES, on their endless enthusiasm, fanatic devotion to the children, and passion for the game. Operating without a centralized budget, we see mutual trust, good will and decency as basic factors of our work.
      Each of the countries possesses strong personalities who successfully coordinate stages and tournaments and help establish contacts with our colleagues from different countries. Together we’ve managed to create something of constant value - a true Basketball Family which is called the EUROPEAN YOUTH BASKETBALL LEAGUE.
      I’d like to thank friends, colleagues, coaches and basketball fans who realize the importance of our work and help us develop EYBL. I’m sure that the League still has a lot of potential and room to grow.
Good luck to everyone!

Guntis Shenhofs, EYBL Honorary president

About EGBL

      Year 2000 was special with the fact that exactly when the Olympic Games took place in Sydney, a new sports event was found – Eastern European Girls Basketball League (EEGBL), it was established in September 19.
      In the first year the best teams from 6 countries took place in EEGBL, the best girls teams from Poland (Sokolov Podlaski UKS Olimp, Koszalin UKS 16), Byelorussia (Minsk Horizont), Lithuania (Kaunas and Vilnius basketball schools and basketball club Laisve), Estonia (Tartu Taba - 89), Russia (Moscow Spartak) and sports school Ridzene and Basketball club Kolibri from Riga - Latvia participated in the first season EEGBL.
      EEGBL have its own president of honor – Uljana Semjonova, she was the leading women's basketball player in the world in the 1970s and 1980s. For almost all of her playing career, she played for TTT Riga, which was part of Daugava Voluntary Sports Society. With TTT, she won 15 championships in the Soviet Union and the European Champions Cup 15 times. Semjonova was also very dominant in international play, winning two Olympic Gold medals while playing for the USSR in 1976 and 1980 and never lost a game in official international competition. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1976, in 1993 became the first non-US woman enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame. She was an inaugural member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in the class of 1999. In 2007, she was enshrined in the FIBA Hall of Fame.

      This year, it is already the 16 season, there are participating the best girls teams from 13 countries, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Greece and Latvia. Next year in season 2015/2016 EGBL will tart participating girls born in 2001/2002 and the league will be open for new participating countries – Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and United Kingdom.
      These 15 years have been an amazing experience for me, as a president of EGBL, also for coaches and girls what we have seen growing professionally – from kids to professional basketball players. Only together we can make this happen also in future, so I would like to thank everyone who has helped to make these 15 basketball seasons in a high and professional basketball level, also thank you to everybody who believes this leagues strength to make our European little basketball world better.

Igo Zanders, President of EGBL, Vice President of EYBL