Year 2000 was special with the fact that exactly when the Olympic Games took place in Sydney, a new sports event was found – Eastern European Girls Basketball League (EEGBL), it was established in September 19.

In the first year the best teams from 6 countries took place in EEGBL, the best girls teams from Poland (Sokolov Podlaski UKS Olimp, Koszalin UKS 16), Byelorussia (Minsk Horizont), Lithuania (Kaunas and Vilnius basketball schools and basketball club Laisve), Estonia (Tartu Taba - 89), Russia (Moscow Spartak) and sports school Ridzene and Basketball club Kolibri from Riga - Latvia participated in the first season EEGBL.
EEGBL have its own president of honor – Uljana Semjonova, she was the leading women's basketball player in the world in the 1970s and 1980s. For almost all of her playing career, she played for TTT Riga, which was part of Daugava Voluntary Sports Society. With TTT, she won 15 championships in the Soviet Union and the European Champions Cup 15 times. Semjonova was also very dominant in international play, winning two Olympic Gold medals while playing for the USSR in 1976 and 1980 and never lost a game in official international competition. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1976, in 1993 became the first non-US woman enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame. She was an inaugural member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in the class of 1999. In 2007, she was enshrined in the FIBA Hall of Fame.
This year, it is already the 14 season, there are participating the best girls teams from 11 countries, Finland, Sweden,Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, Russia ,Greece and Latvia. Next year in season 2014/2015 EEBL will tart participating girls born in 2001/2002 and the league will be open for new participating countries – Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic.
These 13 years have been an amazing experience for me, as a president of EEGBL, also for coaches and girls what we have seen growing professionally – from kids to professional basketball players. Only together we can make this happen also in future, so I would like to thank everyone who has helped to make these 13 basketball seasons in a high and professional basketball level, also thank you to everybody who believes this leagues strength to make our Eastern European little basketball world better.
Igo Zanders, President of EEGBL, Vice President of EYBL