The alliance was spearheaded by the main regional naval power, the Republic of Venice, and included the Knights Hospitaller, the Kingdom of Cyprus, and the Byzantine Empire, while other states also promised support.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the frequent Turkish raids in the Aegean Sea alerted Latin rulers in the region, especially the Republic of Venice which depended heavily on oversea commerce.

[3] Reports of this victory were widely disseminated in the West, reaching the attention of Pope John XXII and crusade theorists who considered the creation of a naval league to be able to both enforce an economic blockade as well as check Turkish advances in the Aegean.

[4] At the same time, pressure exerted by the Catalan Company in Greece led the Republic of Venice to ban, under heavy penalties, all Venetian merchants to trade with the Turks as this was seen as strengthening the enemy.

Also, the Republic dispatched emissaries to the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II, Martino Zaccaria, the Lord of Chios, and Hélion de Villeneuve, Grand Master of the Hospitallers to inquire about the possibility of forming a societas for the protection of their lands against the Turks.