By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
The dispute between FIBA World and FIBA Europe had on Monday its first victim. After an emergency meeting of FIBA Europe’s executive committee, secretary general Nar Zanolin was fired.
That happened just hours before the scheduled meeting in Munich of representatives from nine national European federations that are in favor of the FIBA’s proposal for a four year competition cycle. The news were first reported by the Greek website superbasket.gr, but soon after we got a reaction.
That reaction came from Lithuania with the secretary general of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation, Mindaugas Balciunas, taking the side of Zanolin and threatening FIBA Europe with legal actions. The strange thing among the report of the Lithuanian newspaper “Lietuvos Rytas” is that, as Balciunas reveals, “a vote about FIBA Europe’s separation from FIBA was scheduled for the General Assembly next week”.
Sources from the Greek basketball federation imply, as superbasket.gr writes, that Zanolin – acting without the approval of FIBA Europe president Olafur Rafnsson – sent letters to many national basketball federations in order to gain their support for this move and retain the current Eurobasket format, meaning a competition of 24 teams every two years.