The FIBA Central Board, the supreme executive body of the International Basketball Federation, met over the weekend in Paris, France. Amongst a variety of items, the 20 members discussed the relation between national federations, clubs and leagues, changes to the official basketball rules, new qualification criteria for the Olympic Games and FIBA World Championships, regulations governing player agents and a new FIBA ethics code.
Relationship between National Federations, Clubs and Leagues
Following the first conclusions of its last meeting in November 2003 in Alcobendas, Spain, the Central Board has continued with the evaluation of the relationships between national federations, Zones, clubs and leagues on a global level. For this purpose, a detailed questionnaire has been sent out earlier this year to all 212 national member federations of FIBA. All answers, which were received so far, including those of the strongest federations, gave a detailed insight into the complex relation between them and their leagues. The Central Board concluded that the current process be pursued to identify the institutional mechanism for a stable and positive relationship of the federative structure with leagues. It also decided that this process and such a mechanism must be finalized and
approved at its spring session in 2005. The Central Board therefore instructed at the same time all its constituencies to participate in the process and, where necessary, to open the dialogue with leagues to contribute in a timely manner to the identification of the appropriate mechanism.
Rule Changes
The technical experts of FIBA have worked on the FIBA rule book and presented a simplified and
shorter version of the official FIBA rulebook with a total 50 articles and with all basketball equipment
descriptions been moved to the Appendix. Some changes were made to the existing playing rules of
which the most important are the following:
The FIBA Central Board has approved the new rules which will apply as of 1st September 2004. The new FIBA rules are available on fiba.com.
New Qualification Criteria for the Olympic Games and World Championships
Upon the recommendation of the Commission for International Competitions a variety of important
changes have been made to the competition structure of the main FIBA competitions:
two tournaments will be will be further studied by the Commission and approved by the FIBA Central Board in November 2004.
Regulations about Player Agents
After an intense survey and a meeting with representatives from the player agents, the Central Board has approved in principle the Regulations regarding player agents. Specific ethical principles and guidelines will be integrated into the Regulations for the Board’s final approval at its next meeting in November 2004.
FIBA Code of Ethics
Closely following the model of the International Olympic Committee, FIBA has approved its own Code of Ethics. An independent Ethics Council has been created for this purpose which consists of FIBA Secretary General Emeritus Borislav Stankovic as Chair, together with the former FIBA
Presidents Abdoulaye Seye Moreau from Senegal and George. E. Killian from the United States of America.
FIBA World Championship 2006 in Japan
The Organizing Committee headed by the Vice President of the Japanese Basketball Federation, Mr. Takeshi Ishikawa, gave an extensive report which included a report on the facilities of the five cities chosen for the event: Sapporo, Sendai, Hamamatsu, Hiroshima and Saitama. The FIBA World Championship will be played from 19th August – 3rd September 2004 and will display 24 teams from
five continents.
For further information please contact:
Mr. Florian Wanninger
Tel (+41-22) 545 00 00
Fax (+41-22) 545 00 99
communications @fiba.com
www.fiba.com