Basketball: Germany to host EuroLeague Final Four

By Emre Asikci

ISTANBUL (AA) - The 2021 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four will be played in Germany's Cologne, EuroLeague announced on Monday.

"In the same way that we honored the aspirations of the teams whose seasons were cut short last spring, we were equally determined to bring the Final Four to Cologne for the same compelling reasons that we originally chose to go there," Jordi Bertomeu, Euroleague Basketball President said on EuroLeague.net.

"Staging the first Final Four of this decade in a superb arena and a vibrant major city without its own team in our competitions shows how dedicated we are to bringing new fans to the EuroLeague." he added.

The Final Four will be held from May 28 to 20, 2021 at the Lanxess Arena that has a capacity of 18,500 seated fans.

Lanxess Arena hosted numerous global-scale sports events, including the 2006 NBA Europe Live Tour, 2007 and 2019 World Men's Handball Championship, and 2001, 2010, and 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships.

The next season will kick off on Oct. 1, 2020, with an opening game between Turkey's Anadolu Efes and Russia's Zenit St. Petersburg.

The 34-game regular season is scheduled to end on Apr. 9, 2021, and the top eight clubs will then move on to the playoffs.