FIBA to adopt FIFA format for World Cup?

MANILA, Philippines - It appears that next year’s FIBA Asia Championships will be the last regional qualifier for the World Cup and Manila could’ve been awarded the hosting rights for the historic competition if not for a “nonsensical” decision reached by the Executive Committee in Tokyo recently to anoint Beirut instead.

FIBA Asia secretary general Hagop Khajirian of Lebanon said if his home country is unable to show it is ready to host by the end of this year, Manila will take over. But SBP president Manny V. Pangilinan declared that “if no advice is given to us about our hosting, sooner than later, considering the months of preparations required for proper hosting, we will simply decline.”

Pangilinan minced no words in expressing dismay over the Executive Committee decision. “If FIBA Asia thought Lebanon were capable of hosting, then so be it,” he said. “Why are we made a bridesmaid, a spare part, the fifth wheel? It certainly gives the impression that FIBA wasn’t at all sure about Lebanon’s preparedness as opposed to ours and suggests shades of partiality.”

Manila hasn’t hosted the FIBA Asia Championships since 1973 and a repeat performance would’ve coincided with the 40th anniversary. The FIBA Asia Championships are held every two years – one as the zonal qualifier for the Olympics where only the first placer earns a ticket and the other as the zonal qualifier for the World Cup where the top three finishers are allocated slots. The 2011 FIBA Asia Championships sent China to the recent London Olympics and next year’s edition will advance the top three to the World Cup in Spain in 2014.

But SBP executive director Sonny Barrios said FIBA is pushing for a dramatic change in the World Cup qualifying format patterned after the FIFA version. Barrios said FIBA will schedule its World Cup on the third year after the Olympics so as not to compete for sponsors and media mileage with FIFA whose World Cup is on the second year after the Olympics. Both World Cups are held once in four years.

If the new FIBA format is approved, the 2014 World Cup in Spain will be the last under the old system with the next edition in 2019 or three years after the 2016 Rio Olympics. Under the proposed format, the FIBA World Cup will be expanded from 24 to 32 teams with a qualifying system on a home-and-away basis. The 32 teams will be split into eight groups of four with the top two of each bracket advancing to the knockout stages starting with the Round of 16. The FIBA Asia Executive Committee took up the new format during its meeting here last week.

FIBA president Yvan Mainini of France attended the FIBA Asia Executive Committee meeting with secretary general Patrick Baumann of Switzerland. Mainini said the new system of competition will consist of a four-year cycle with the World Cup, Olympics, zonal championships and a summer dedicated exclusively to women’s basketball.

“There can be up to 1,600 games played by up to 130 national federations over a period of 18 to 24 months,” explained Mainini. “This is double the number of national teams that are currently involved in the qualifying process for FIBA’s leading international tournaments. Most of these games will be played in a home-and-away format but it could also be done within tournaments of proximity. The same could apply to zonal championships, thus creating a lean four-year plan.”

Another innovation is the 3-on-3 tournament which FIBA is lobbying for inclusion in the Olympics. The 3-on-3 competition was staged at the first Youth Olympics in Singapore two years ago. Since the International Olympic Committee is resisting a proposal to expand the basketball program from 12 to 16 in the Summer Games, a compromise could be to bring in 3-on-3 as a new discipline on a limited scale with each team made up of only four players, including a reserve, compared to 12 for a regular squad. The IOC is reluctant to increase the number of athletes in the Olympics because of the added logistical burden on the host city.

It is not clear how the qualifiers for the Olympics will be determined under the new system but since the World Cup is to be held the year before the Olympics, the probability is the zonal champions will be given slots.