The sheer number of new faces arriving at Barcelona next season points to a wholesale revolution across every level of the Catalan club.
Change isn’t confined to the management running the basketball team. It reaches the squad too, with more than two thirds of last season’s players having walked out of the Palau Blaugrana.
Sisco Buyol, Chevy Buyol, Alexander Sekulic, Justin Robinson, Agus Oppal and Tyrese Martin all feature in one of the biggest rebuilds the club has ever attempted.
Three seasons without a trophy left the project drifting. So Barcelona rolled the dice, launching a new phase built on players who lack experience in European basketball.
According to newspaper “Sport“, Barcelona will announce the appointment of Chevy Buyol as the new strongman of the club’s basketball department within the coming hours.
Buyol arrives on the back of outstanding work at Baskonia last season, and before that at Manresa, where he masterminded the team’s successes at the Nou Congost.
Juan Carlos Navarro, meanwhile, has been handed a new role after stepping back in recent weeks from shaping the new sporting project. The Barcelona legend will become an ambassador for the basketball team and a mentor for young players in the age categories.
More moves are coming. Journalist Oscar Eirreros revealed that Barcelona will bolster their sporting structure by signing Turkish scout Kuzey Kilic.
Kilic boasts a fine reputation in European basketball. Still only 26, he has built up notable experience through his work with several of the continent’s big clubs.
Sport confirmed the move is now settled, with Kilic having ended his ties with Dubai Basket, where he worked within the technical staff until last season. The club will announce the deal officially in the coming days.
Barcelona’s hierarchy regard the Turkish scout’s arrival as hugely significant, because he plugs a missing link within the sporting structure of the basketball team.
Signing Kuzey Kilic alongside Chevy Buyol, the club believe, marks a decisive step in rebuilding the project and putting Barcelona’s basketball team back on the right track.