FIBA: GB COULD GET WORSE BEFORE BETTER
- Updated: September 18, 2015
The head of basketball’s world governing body, Patrick Baumann, has revealed his frustration at British basketball officials for squandering the legacy of the London 2012 Olympics.
And he claims the prognosis for the sport in the UK may even get worse before it gets better. The FIBA secretary-general admits he has watched aghast at the decline in performance of the Great Britain men’s team, which lost its UK Sport funding after failing to qualify for the current EuroBasket finals, as well as an inability to raise the profile of the BBL.
With Basketball England in particular disarray following an ill-fated gambit by its now-departed chief executive Huw Morgan to lure American investors, there have been calls to clean house completely before Basketball Scotland and its home nation counterparts are folded into a single British Basketball Federation in 2016.
“The bad news is that it’s gone backwards in some instances with a lack of funding and money problems. That’s not really new,†Baumann said. “The good thing is the talent is there and that people want to invest. Ok, from where? That’s not for me to say. But people see an opportunity. It’s under-performing. It’s not well-managed. But if you want to invest, you also see you can make a profit.
“That’s not bad. Now everybody has agreed to a British Federation concept. Once that kicks in next year, you can stabilise the leadership. It might take time to be credible. I don’t think it’s hit the bottom yet. But then I think it will be easier for new leadership to come in and simply change it around.â€
Baumann, who has revealed FIBA have taken steps to avoid any FIFA-style meltdown, is also confident his revamp of the international schedule to give extra prominence to the World Cup will be able to deliver profits to share with the NBA in a move that could ease the path for leading players to keep turning out for their country.
“We shaped the strategy for the future together with the NBA,” he said. “The strategy is to make the FIBA World Cup much bigger than it is today. The money sharing we can discuss. But it implies that everyone in that summer will come and play.
“Now you will have the guys who are injured. The ones who don’t like the coach. You get that all the time. The Olympics is a very special cherry on the cake. But it has to be the cherry. The cake is the World Cup.”
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