On the fringes of the 6th Final4 tournament the SEHA - Gazprom League held its annual assembly on Friday in Brest, Belarus. Besides reports of President Mihajlo Mihajlovski, Managing director Sinisa Ostoic and Commissioner Marjan Nachevski, the elections of board were in the focus of the agenda.

Bozidar Djurkovic, President of the Serbian Handball Federation and Chairman of the Competition Commission of the European Handball Federation, was elected new Vice President, while Smajo Karacic (Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Jernej Smisl (Slovenia) were elected new Members of the Executive Committee.

Statements after the assembly:

Mihajlo Mihajlovski, President SEHA - Gazprom League:

All member federations and participants of our assembly agreed that the SEHA - Gazprom League again had shown a great season, everybody was highly satisfied, including our title sponsor. But though we know our strength and improvement and we kept going on in professionalizing, we will not stop improving furthermore and to work harder for our development. Our great goal is getting closer to German Bundesliga in all departments, our long-term objective is becoming the main and leading competition in European handball.

Sinisa Ostoic, Managing Director SEHA - Gazprom League:

The differences of the clubs, participating in the SEHA - Gazprom League - in terms of sports and organisation - had been really small in the 2016/17 season, which makes us feel happy. But we need to keep the level high for the future, as it is our general goal to improve by at least five percent in all departments every year. We want to become better and better.

In terms of the composition of the 2017/18 SEHA - Gazprom League season we will have to wait until beginning of June, when the national leagues of our member federations have concluded. In our next meeting we will discuss, which clubs will take part, fulfilling all requirements of the SEHA - Gazprom League. So we cannot say at this moment, which clubs will be part of the competition.

As Mihajlo Mihajlovski already pointed out, there was a high level of satisfaction on the current season among all member federations. We reached new heights by having all 90 matches of the regular season broadcasted by TV or via livestream, this was one of our goals and we made it. We all recognized that we are on a good way.

Bozidar Djurkovic, new Vice President SEHA - Gazprom League:

I feel very proud, happy and honoured to be in this position now. Besides my work for Serbian and European handball, I like to take over this function and responsibility in the SEHA - Gazprom League. Though we had no Serbian clubs being part of the competition this season, obviously I had a close look upon the SEHA - Gazprom League, and it feels good to see the development of the competition - in terms of sportive performances on court and the organisational and marketing matters off the court. You can see the constant improvement in all departments. Clubs such as Veszprem, Vardar, Celje, Brest, Zagreb and many more represent a high level of quality.