FIBA Europe lifts sanctions on National Federations

The FIBA Europe Board has taken the important decision to lift the ban on national teams, allowing them to play in the upcoming European Championships.

Several national teams had been banned from Eurobasket 2017 due to the ongoing fight for control over European competitions being fought between FIBA Europe and the Euroleague. The original punishment came because the governing body did not think national federations were doing enough to ensure their clubs would perform in the newly formed Champions League.

“Last month FIBA took drastic action in its bid to get European clubs to commit to its Basketball Champions League format, which is a direct competitor to the Euroleague. The governing body told national federations to pull clubs in line by punishing them for sticking with the ULEB run Euroleague. However, some federations refused to punish clubs and FIBA Europe took the surprising action of suspending national bodies from competitions such as the 2017 European championships.

The Slovenian Federation was banned from Eurobasket 2017, while 14 national federations in total were threatened with similar action.”

At the FIBA Europe Board Term of Office 2014-2019 in Dublin on Friday (May 27), the Board reviewed recent reports from the Executive Committee that showed National Federations originally banned (14 in total) had reacted in a positive way to resolve the issue. The decision was then made to allow the national teams to take their place and FIBA Europe organized tournaments.

However, the Board also noted that it sees the Euroleague Commercial Assets (ECA)’s actions as anti-competitive and will be monitoring how National Federations behave in this light.