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Laman Ismayilova

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Azerbaijan's Neftchi basketball team, which will compete in the FIBA Europe Cup, has strengthened its roster with a new foreign player, Azernews reports.

A one-year contract has been signed with Serbian basketball player Stefan Kenic.

The 28-year-old forward played for Serbia's renowned "Crvena Zvezda" club during the 2015/2016 season. Throughout his professional career, he spent the 2023/2024 season with Poland's "Arka" (Gdynia) club.

Kenic was a member of the Serbian U-16 national basketball team that won the silver medal at the 2013 FIBA Europe Under-16 Championship in Ukraine. He was a member of the Serbian U-17 national basketball team that won the bronze medal at the 2014 FIBA Under-17 World Championship in the United Arab Emirates.

The FIBA Europe Cup (FEC) is an annual professional basketball tournament organized by FIBA for European clubs eligible to participate. It is considered the second-tier competition in FIBA Europe.

Clubs typically qualify based on their performance in domestic leagues and cup competitions, though this is not the only criterion. The winner is determined through a two-legged final.

Launched in 2015, the competition replaced the FIBA EuroChallenge.

The tournament kicks off with a regular season featuring 32 teams, divided into eight groups. Seeding is applied during the draw, and teams from the same country cannot be placed in the same group. In a round-robin format, each team plays home and away games against others in their group. The top two teams from each group then advance to the second round, where 16 teams are divided into four groups. These teams continue with home-and-away matches in a similar round-robin setup.

For the playoffs, the winners and runners-up of each group qualify and compete in a two-legged format. Prior to 2019, teams finishing fifth and sixth were excluded from the Basketball Champions League regular season.

The regular season typically runs from October to December, with the second round from December to January, and the playoffs beginning in February.

To date, 140 clubs from 38 FIBA member countries have participated in the competition, which has been claimed by eight different clubs from seven countries.

Italian teams have been the most successful, with two teams winning the title and three others finishing as runners-up.