By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Despite the reports about the opinion of Eurobasket 2015 head of local organizing committee Markiyan Lubkivskiy who seems to be thinking about the possible relocation of the tournament to an other country, the vice president of the Ukrainian basketball federation changed everything.
As Valeriy Kondratyev said “we have already done too much and it’s hard to just let Eurobasket go”. FIBA Europe seems to be thinking the same, as they clarified via twitter that Ukraine never asked to step down as the host of the tournament.
FIBA Europe will have a scheduled assembly in Munich this weekend and of course one of the main topics will be the upcoming Eurobasket. According to Eurohoops sources, FIBA Europe is not going to take action immediately, but it will announce that the situation in Ukraine will be under close supervision and probably re-evaluated next Fall. Eurobasket 2015 can still be on track and the role of PrivatBank and its owner are the key to this.
Of course, this situation has given hope to almost every basketball federation in Europe that they can get Eurobasket 2015 in case of an emergency. There is a joint plan from Baltic countries to co-host the tournament, Poland also wants in, Serbia is interested, Greece likes to remind everyone that has the gyms and the know how, France officially declared that would love to get at least the first round of the event, Finland and Germany are also in the mix. Still if you want to put your money in the favorites, then be mindful of Turkey and Spain, hosts of the upcoming FIBA World Cup and FIBA World Championship for women, which will be more than ready to host also a Eurobasket next summer.