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FIBA Club Cups: Korać, Saporta, BCL

The Korać and Saporta Cups, the Basketball Champions League and other FIBA club competitions: winners and memorable finals.

36 The Saporta Cup was named after Raimundo Saporta, a longtime Real Madrid director. It ran for 36 seasons, from 1966 to 2002.

1967 The first Cup Winners' Cup final, in 1967, was played over two legs. Ignis Varese beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 144-135 on aggregate.

1968 In 1968 AEK Athens won the Cup Winners' Cup, the first European trophy for a Greek club. About 80,000 fans watched the final at the Panathenaic Stadium, then a world record.

50 AEK Athens' European trophies span exactly 50 years, from the 1968 Cup Winners' Cup to the 2018 Basketball Champions League.

2002 The Korać Cup ran for 30 seasons, from 1972 to 2002. Its last winner was French club SLUC Nancy.

26 Alexander Belov led Spartak Leningrad to the Cup Winners' Cup in 1973 and 1975. He died of a rare heart cancer in 1978, aged just 26.

1974 Crvena Zvezda won their first European trophy in 1974, beating Spartak Brno 86-75 in the Cup Winners' Cup final.

63-62 Spartak Leningrad, coached by Vladimir Kondrashin, won the Cup Winners' Cup twice. In the 1975 final they edged Crvena Zvezda 63-62.

Cibus The name Cibona comes from the Latin "cibus bonus", meaning "good food". Until 1975 the club was called Lokomotiva, and under that name it won the first Korać Cup in 1972.

117-110 The 1978 Korać Cup final was all-Yugoslav: Partizan beat Bosna Sarajevo 117-110. A year later Partizan won the cup again.

1982 In 1982 Limoges won the Korać Cup, the first European trophy for a French club. They defended it the following year.

1984 In 1984 the club from Orthez, a small town in south-west France, won the Korać Cup, beating Crvena zvezda 97-73 in Paris. In 1991 the club moved to the bigger city of Pau.

1991 PAOK Thessaloniki won two different European cups in four years: the Cup Winners' Cup in 1991 and the Korać Cup in 1994.

50-48 In the 1993 Saporta Cup final Aris Thessaloniki beat Efes Pilsen 50-48. The two teams scored just 98 points between them.

1994 In 1994 Olimpija Ljubljana won the Saporta Cup, beating Taugrés 91-81 in the final. It was the first European trophy for a Slovenian club.

1995 In 1995 Alba Berlin won the Korać Cup, the first European trophy for a German club. Their coach was Svetislav Pešić, who later won the 2003 EuroLeague with Barcelona.

1 In 1996 Efes Pilsen won the Korać Cup 146-145 on aggregate, by a single point over Stefanel Milano. It was the first European trophy for a Turkish club.

1996 Baskonia, then called Taugrés, won their first European trophy at home in Vitoria in 1996, beating PAOK 88-81 in the Cup Winners' Cup final.

88-70 Aris lost the first leg of the 1997 Korać Cup final 77-66 to Tofaş, then won the second 88-70 and took the trophy.

82-67 A year before its EuroLeague triumph, Žalgiris won the Saporta Cup, beating Stefanel Milano 82-67 in the 1998 final.

1999 The 1999 Korać Cup final was all-Spanish. Barcelona lost the first leg to Estudiantes by 16, then won the second by 27.

2000 In 2000 Limoges won the French league, the French Cup and the Korać Cup. A year later, because of financial problems, the club was relegated to the second division.

3 Unicaja Málaga have won three different European competitions: the Korać Cup (2001), the EuroCup (2017) and the Basketball Champions League (2024 and 2025).

74-72 In 2001 Maroussi, a club from an Athens suburb, won the Saporta Cup, edging Élan Chalon 74-72 in the final.

2004 UNICS Kazan won the very first FIBA Europe League in 2004, at a Final Four held in their own arena in Kazan.

2011 Since 2011 the original Korać Cup trophy, handed out in Europe for 30 years, has gone to the winner of the Serbian Cup, which is named after Radivoj Korać.

2016 FIBA founded the Basketball Champions League in 2016 as its own club competition alongside the EuroLeague and EuroCup.

2017 Tenerife won the first Basketball Champions League in 2017, beating Turkey's Banvit 63-59 in the final. They won it again in 2022.

2 San Pablo Burgos won the Basketball Champions League two years running, in 2020 and 2021. In the second final they beat Turkey's Karşıyaka 64-59.

2023 In 2023 Telekom Baskets Bonn became the first German club to win the Basketball Champions League, beating Hapoel Jerusalem 77-70 in the final.

4 The Saporta Cup record is shared by Real Madrid and Cantù, with four wins each.

10 Cantù, a club from a small town near Como, collected 10 European trophies: two Champions Cups, four Cup Winners' Cups and four Korać Cups.

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