ABA League: Referees Reject 630 Euros, Round Two at Risk

The clock read 9 p.m. on Sunday, September 27, when representatives of the ABA League and its referees sat down for a video conference. Three and a half hours later, they logged off with the same message they had started with: no deal.

At the table for the league were Ostoja Mijailovic (Partizan), Dragan Bokan (Buducnost), Davor Uzbinec (Cedevita Olimpija), Nemanja Vasiljevic, Djordjije Pavicevic and league director Dubravko Kmetovic. The referees, 63 of them from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, were represented by Zagreb lawyer Danijel Papak. Most of that group also officiate in the EuroLeague and the EuroCup, so the ABA League is not their only job, but it is the one over which the entire season is now stalling.

The number at the center of the dispute is 630 euros. That is what the league is offering per game, a 12 percent raise on the current fee. The referees are asking for 800. A compromise figure of 700 euros has been floated, an amount that would cost the league almost 1 million euros more a year but could also clear the way for the season to continue. Beyond the money, the referees also want a say in drafting their own rulebook and the right to form their own association, a request the league says it has no objection to.

The league recently offered the same terms, a 12 percent increase, in a public call for new referees, but too few candidates applied for the season to start with them instead. Replacing the current 63 officials at this point is effectively impossible: these are people with experience at the highest level in Europe, and no one can replace them in a matter of weeks.

What happens if the referees don’t budge by Monday?

Here the reports diverge. Sportklub says the referees were given until noon on Monday to respond in writing, and that the league will immediately open a new call for referees if they refuse. B92, citing the same Monday noon deadline, describes it instead as a resumption of talks, not a verdict. By noon on September 28 both scenarios were still on the table, and Kurir and Telegraf reported that day that the referees had in fact turned down the offer, leaving the question of what comes next unresolved.

The first round has already been postponed. The second, scheduled for next weekend, includes ten games, among them Borac Cacak against Siroki, Krka against Buducnost, and Cedevita Olimpija against Cibona. Dubai, Slovan Bratislava, Vienna and Cluj have already arranged travel for that round, so another postponement could expose the league itself to damages claims from those clubs.

The referees’ lawyer, Danijel Papak, told the Croatian outlet Vecernji list, in comments carried by Mondo, that the problem does not lie with the officials.

Referees are not the ones issuing ultimatums, nor are they the ones holding the league hostage.

He added that the referees were promised back in November 2025 that league leadership would sort out their status and financial terms by the end of last season, and that they finished that season without any obstruction on their part, while the promise, he says, remains unfulfilled a year later.

We reported a few days ago that a new meeting had been set for Sunday evening, with hope that the season could still open this weekend. That hope is now slimmer than it was. If the league and the referees cannot close the gap between 630 euros and something closer to 700, the second round will not start either, and the math involving lawsuits and a new referee tender becomes far more expensive than negotiations that have already dragged on for weeks.