By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
The latest developments concerning the state of FIBA Europe suggest the situation is clearly unstable. Mindaugas Balciunas, the secretary general of the Lithuanian basketball federation sent to Munich an official document, signed by 28 national federations, asking for an emergency general assembly.
Yesterday, FIBA Europe’s president, Olafur Rafnsson sent back a request for each one of these 28 national federations in order confirm who is qualified to sign official documents and the day he will receive at least 15 such confirmations -with each national federation’s seal on the document- he will have 45 to 60 days to declare an emergency general assembly.
Then, we are going to learn which is the actual request for this assembly. The FIBA Europe charter does not foresee the possibility of elections, without a resignation. So, if the demand is for elections, first they have to decide to change the charter (only in this way, they can have elections, before the end of Rafnsson’s presidency, which is two years from now) and they will go on from there. But keep in mind, elections need their time to prepare everything there is to prepare -for example to announce the names of the candidates.
The sure thing is the situation is exacerbated and we are going to witness the first motion of censure against the president of FIBA Europe in its history.