2019 host spared from qualifiers

MANILA, Philippines -  The next FIBA World Cup will welcome a record 32 teams with the host country exempted from going through the arduous two-year qualification period to feature six home-and-away windows from November 2017 to February, June, September and November in 2018 and February 2019.

The Philippines is bidding to host the 2019 edition and PLDT chairman/SBP president Manny V. Pangilinan, who recently accepted FIBA secretary-general Patrick Baumann’s invitation to join the FIBA Central Board, said four to eight different venues will be made available for the tournament as necessary.

In this year’s FIBA World Cup, the group stage was played in four different venues in Spain – Bilbao, Granada, Seville and Gran Canaria. Madrid and Barcelona took over the hosting chores starting the knockout Round-of-16. The playoff for third place will be held in Madrid tomorrow and the final, also in Madrid on Sunday. The format for the 2019 tournament has not been finalized but the group stage will likely split the 32 teams into more than four brackets. If four brackets are used, the preliminaries will be unwieldy as there will be eight teams per group. If eight brackets are used, it will mean four teams in each group and eight playing venues.

FIBA will announce the confirmed list of bidding countries in November. The next month, representatives of the bidders will converge in Geneva for a workshop. In January-February, FIBA will conduct ocular inspections of the bidders’ venues. It is not certain if FIBA will consider facilities that may be under construction at that time. In April, the bidders will make their final presentations to FIBA and in May, the FIBA Central Board will decide the winning bid.

The prize for the winning bidder is an automatic ticket to the World Cup. If the Philippines wins the bid, it may or may not participate in the qualifying process. Last year’s FIBA Asia tournament was the last zone qualifier for the World Cup with Iran, the Philippines and South Korea earning slots in Spain. Next year’s FIBA Asia Championships will be the last qualifier for the Olympics and only the winner will represent the region at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

PBA commissioner Chito Salud said the pro league is committed to support Gilas’ participation at the FIBA Asia Championships in China next year for the chance to return to the Olympics after 44 years. The Philippines has not competed in Olympic basketball since 1972. Beyond 2015, Salud said the PBA will study the World Cup qualifying process carefully to determine a viable approach in supporting Gilas.

After the five FIBA regions hold their Olympic qualifying tournaments in 2017, the next continental championships will be held in August-September 2021 or four years later. Qualification for the continental championships will be over a one-year period from November 2019 with each team playing one home and one away game per window. Starting in 2021, the continental championships, like the FIBA Asia tournament, will no longer be qualifiers for either the Olympics or World Cup.

The continental championships will follow a four-year cycle from 2017 with a home-and-away qualifying system to begin after each World Cup. It will use the regular windows except during the Olympic summer. What FIBA intends to do is to increase the frequency of tournaments involving national teams. FIBA’s approach is borrowed from the FIFA model. It is FIBA’s goal to fuel more global interest in basketball using the FIFA system of exposing the national teams to frequent competition. “The growth of national team basketball in any country needs to be promoted,” said FIBA. “There will be new interest for basketball (with) regular official national team games in front of their home fans. There will be improved basketball exposure (with) more than 140 countries playing 1,250 regular and meaningful games. It’s an opportunity for new countries and players to emerge through regular official games. It will also mean all-year regular visibility of the national team, not only in summertime, creating synergies with club competitions. The platform for the development of new basketball talents will be established.”

FIBA said Olympic qualifying tournaments will be held in June 2020 to determine other teams to play at the Summer Games. Top finishers of the 2019 World Cup will directly qualify for the 2020 Olympics.

In 2019, the FIBA World Cup will bring in 32 entries – the host nation, five from Africa, seven from the Americas, seven from Asia/Oceania and 12 from Europe. There will be no allocation for wildcards. In this year’s World Cup, Asia was represented by the top three FIBA Asia finishers and Oceania by the top two qualifiers. In 2019, Asia and Oceania will be fused with seven combined tickets.

After Gilas ended its campaign in Seville, Pangilinan assured FIBA that the Philippines will remain a responsible and participative member, true to the governing federation’s principles, rules and ideals. In a text message to Baumann, MVP called the Philippines’ historic win over Senegal as “a game of redemption for us and brings a sense of relief to our Gilas team and to our people that we won’t come home empty-handed.”