Βy Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis remotely met with journalists to discuss the 2023 World Cup, the upcoming Olympic Games, and the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments while also talking about the development of the talks with EuroLeague Basketball.
Zagklis made a short assessment of the FIBA World Cup year of 2023 and how it showed growth on and off the court. “We were expecting that we would have surpassed the numbers of the 2019 World Cup in China already at the end of the group phase,” said Zagklis. “The number of 4.6 billion views [on FIBA’s social media channels] speaks for itself.”
With the successful 2023 World Cup in the books now, FIBA is looking forward to 2024 and primarily the Olympic Qualifiers. These tournaments will produce four teams to join the Olympic Games host France, South Sudan, Canada, United States, Japan, Germany, Serbia, and Australia in Paris.
Are 12 national teams too few?
“I think FIBA has tried quite a few times in the past to have the 12 teams become 16,” Zagklis said, answering a related question by Eurohoops. “Historically, we were more than 12 but we went down to have Women’s teams in, during Montreal in 1976.”
“It was fundamental to do that,” Zagklis added. “Fast forward to today: The Olympics are operating under a general cap of 10,500, plus the sports that are proposed by the Olympic Organizing Committee. It was a tremendous success of my predecessor to have 3×3 basketball in the Olympics. We aren’t happy with only eight teams in 3×3. We’re happy that we’re in but with eight teams we don’t have universality. We don’t have all the continents represented, which is important for us.”
“It’s a priority for us to raise that number, “Zagklis mentioned. “On the basketball side, it has been made clear – and also a recent announcements about Los Angeles are that the number of quotes won’t increase for any sport. So we shouldn’t expect the eight to become more, in Los Angeles or Brisbane. The OQTS are for us, together with the Olympics, the main product of basketball next summer. The proximity of the two is such, that there’s no doubt that in terms of quality these four OQTs of six teams each… these are mini World Cups.”
“I’m excited about the level of talent we’ll have in the Olympics,” Zagklis concluded. “I can tell you that I also see the teams from the other continents being very motivated to come well-prepared. On Giannis and Luka, we’ll have a great Qualifying Tournament in Piraeus between the two of them and others. Dominican Republic, New Zealand, Egypt, and Croatia are also there. These are going to be two weeks of great basketball.”
The EuroLeague talks, the unprecedented insurance program, and the calendar
The topic of FIBA’s talks with EuroLeague Basketball was also touched on. The two sides had already had several discussions on matters such as the conflicting midseason calendar and have reached an agreement regarding the upcoming February FIBA Window as no EuroLeague games will be held there.
“For me, unity in the European basketball family is not just important. It’s the only way for the growth of European basketball. And this is why we’re trying so hard. This is why we have pride on our side and federations and leagues to create more unity and more consensus so when we arrive at the table of discussion with our colleagues from ECA we can arrive to conclusions faster and more easily. We started two and a half years ago. The initiative also brought the NBA to the table in the beginning. This process was hampered by a number of factors. COVID-19 was one of them. But also the internal changes in ECA played an important reason. We have been trying on our side to be very constructive, providing proposals for what we achieved last summer which happened thanks to a respectful atmosphere on the premise that we don’t try to tell you how to do our job and you don’t try to tell us how to do our job.”
“There are synergies there that can help everyone grow,” Zagklis added. “I think that’s the premise. We have indeed delivered on the things we agreed to last summer. We made some improvements that were asked by ECA on the insurance. We had previously improved already the system based on FIBA, ULEB, and our clubs. We did take a step for the November Window and this year we know that this is the difficult calendar year between the World Cup, Olympics, and OQTs. We have had our own internal consultation but a democratic process. We have new leadership in Europe. Despite the change, we continue to unite in one voice. I think we need to be responsible not only to our members but also to our fans for asking for this unity. We need to provide some transparency. We said we won’t negotiate publicly but at the same time, I need to tell you that we’ve met already twice since the World Cup. We were supposed to meet a third time… we will meet in the next few weeks.”
Zagklis underlined that FIBA helped the players by combining the qualifiers windows, making only one in-season break in collaboration with the EuroLeague and he expects “everyone to be present” in the national team games and didn’t exclude the possibility of collaboration for promoting the games with the EuroLeague.
Plus he added that FIBA currently has in place one “of the more advanced insurance program” which covers all the players for their national team duties and compensates the clubs in case of an injury. Medical expenses and salary are also covered and “while there are small letters, the insurance program is one of the biggest investments of FIBA towards the players”.
Zagklis also explained why he hopes that both EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiejunas and President Dejan Bodiroga have “longer mandates” in the organization and how this can help the cooperation between the two sides become more fruitful.
“We should be respectful and recognize the situation inside the EuroLeague isn’t the same. They have a new CEO on a specific term. The relationship is going well. I have to also be transparent in that respect. It’s also someone from my generation. The court of communication is good. I hope that him and the president can have longer mandates so we can have also ourselves better visibility on where the EuroLeague is going next years. Otherwise, we’ll be trapped in short-term thinking. We have provided the calendar, we’ve done a lot of work. The two teams have exchanged a lot of things, which I find positive. We need to see now the owners of the clubs empowering the leadership for this deal so that we can see long term.”
The naturalized players and load management
The issue of the naturalized players was also mentioned with Andreas Zagklis confirming that FIBA doesn’t intend to follow the FIFA rules example: “The rule has worked and has provided a very difficult balance between the objective, which is to try as much to have a team that represents the basketball in the country, and the principle of the passport. Those two things are extremely difficult to reconcile. On top of that, there are the particularities of our sport where we have two or three countries, especially the US producing thousands of players each year. Their national team can only have 12, but even the players no50, 60, or 100 can make a difference at the national team level. This is the rule we have worked the hardest on and we have one naturalized player, but for the other 11 the rules are very strict”.
He also made a very clear example of that and why the rule is like that: “We have also to take into account that the US has a special law, according to which you take the passport if you are born there. Are we happy that more countries than before are using the naturalized player spot? You can be happy or unhappy but this is an old rule. What’s important for us is to explain to our federations that if you discover a player in college at the age of 18 and he never played for Team USA, has a father or a mother with the passport of your country, that player is naturalized”.
Last but not least, Zagklis mentioned the workload of the players and load management in conjunction with FIBA’s effort to protect them players: “I am not subscribing to the load management philosophy. I will tell you in terms of our international calendar how we protected the players. It was clear when we presented our new calendar 10 years ago that a big tournament every summer on a four-year cycle was too much. The fact is that the players were not following this policy, since few of them were present on all four summers and it was clear to us that if we wanted to protect our continental competitions going forward we needed one continental tournament every four years and not every two years. So one big tournament was eliminated, to a cost for us, and that’s why the qualifiers windows came back for the first time after 15 years. At the same time the clubs, especially in Europe have increased the number of games. This is a business discussion as well, have the players’ salaries increased as much? When we announced our plans, the EuroLeague had a season that at maximum included 26 to 27 games. Now if you end up in the Final, you play 41. This is what changed the load in Europe. And I don’t know if it’s news, but from Eurobasket 2025, we will have only one back-to-back game for each team, something that the players asked and this also costs FIBA. In the World Cup, we don’t have back-to-back games, same in the Olympics and I don’t like the fact that we have them in the Olympic qualifiers. And ultimately that’s something that has to be discussed with the leagues because we cannot reduce any more our competitions”.