Shortlist unveiled for 2021-22 One Team Program Awards

Six clubs from the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and 7DAYS EuroCup have been shortlisted for the annual One Team Program Awards, highlighting the outstanding work carried out by clubs to support vulnerable members of their local communities.

The awards will be presented during the One Team Annual Workshop in September, with Gold, Silver and Bronze prizes up for grabs. The six shortlisted clubs are:

AX Armani Exchange Milan: The Italian club has worked alongside Laureus Sport For Good Italia Onlus to create an ambitious program focusing on community cohesion, supporting a greater number of youngsters at risk of social exclusion by using high-quality basketball drills with strong planning and excellent organization.

Cazoo Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz: Baskonia teamed up with the Gizarterako Association to run a varied series of events throughout the year, including workshops and camps, promoting community cohesion in many different ways throughout the club's infrastructure.

Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul: Alongside TEB Atasehir Anatolian High School, Fenerbahce showed a great improvement in its program creation based around social inclusion and achieved significant social media coverage.

Mincidelici JL Bourg En Bresse: The only EuroCup club on the shortlist, Bourg worked with AFIS 01 IJS to create a program supporting children with physical disabilities. The activities were had clear objectives and were closely aligned with the needs of the group, also featuring fantastic Ambassador involvement.

Olympiacos Piraeus: The Reds ran a program for youth with intellectual disabilities alongside 1st Elementary School of Agios Dimitrios, and succeeded in empowering the participants through innovative and well-constructed drills and sessions.

Zalgiris Kaunas: Partnering with Special Olympics Lithuania, Zalgiris supported youth with intellectual disabilities through a great long-term program which closely involved club sponsors and gained strong social media coverage.

Roser Queralto, Euroleague Basketball's Chief Business Development Officer, said: "The last 12 months have seen a fantastic contribution from our clubs all over Europe to their local communities, delivering most sessions on-court despite the limitations imposed by COVID restrictions. It has been particularly great to see our One Team participants once again enjoying face-to-face contact with coaches and ambassadors, learning how the values of basketball can be applied to daily life. Many more teams could easily have been shortlisted for the awards but these six stood out just a little bit more, and we are looking forward to honoring the winners at the One Team Annual Workshop in September, the tip-off of One Team's second decade of community delivery."

As they were in last season's awards, sustainability consultancy thinkBeyond is again involved in the 2021-22 judging process, with the programs assessed according to program planning and delivery, ambassadors' involvement, marketing and communications activities, and the involvement of commercial partners.

One Team, supported by Turkish Airlines as the One Team Founding Patron and with the collaboration of Special Olympics as Proud Partner, uses basketball to achieve real social impact in our communities.

With an innovative model of interconnectedness across an entire continent, Euroleague Basketball and its clubs have developed a complete CSR program that brings together activities from each team in an integrated, impactful way, working under the theme of "community integration" that actively addresses targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 (on reduced inequalities).