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Quote:After the end of the friendly game between Lithuania-Russia in Panevezys, a ceremony took place where Russian and Lithuanian Basketball Federations signed an agreement regarding their partnership.

The deal was signed by the Presidents of the two Basketball Federations, Sergey Chernov of Russia and Vladas Garastas of Lithuania.

The partnership will include a range of joint activities for the developement of the sport in the two nations which will benefit both sides. Such activities will be joint training camps of the two National Teams, both on senior and junior level and the establishment of the "Federation SuperCup", a two games series between the two National Teams, home and away.

The agreement is valid from August 31, 2009 until December 31, 2010 when it will be automatically renewed for another year.

I can't really see what Lithuania gains from this deal. Instead of Federations Super Cup that we had a couple of years ago, they would rather arrange four nations tournament in which both Lithuania and Russia would participate if they want such partnership. Such tournament could become a tradition like Acropolis tournament.

Now there are 3 teams that we face in every single preparation period: Latvia, Russia and Spain.

I think it's a good idea which could generally benefit both nations in the long term. Good things could start from basketball and maybe spread to politics too...

The thing is that I don't see how it could benefit Lithuanian basketball. Just like Baltic Basketball League benefited Latvian and Estonian basketball. Maybe there's some financial support for our teams from Russian basketball federation as they could attract big sponsors. It's not like we could learn something totally new from them so I see no point of this deal. As I said if they agreed to create some traditional tournament which would be marketed and become prestigious warm up tournament then it would be much better.

About politics, this partnership will have no influence in my opinion. Politicians won't change because of this while relations between non politicians are good anyway.

LKF also signed a deal with Spanish basketball federation. The game later today between both national teams is part of this deal as it will be the 1st time in 10 years when Spain plays a preparation game not at home!