By Peter Haynes
FORTY-ONE countries representing the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC), the territories from Central and South America, along with the USA and Canada will be sending delegates to Puerto Rico next week – March 23 to 25 – for the Regional Congress. Also attending will be delegates from FIBA Americas Executive Council and the Central Board of CONCENTRABA (Central America and CBC).
This Congress will have far-reaching consequences on the future of Basketball, particularly the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC), as the main focus of the discussions will be the revision and adoption of the Group’s Constitution. The revision is intended to bring them in line with FIBA’s Constitution.
During the three days, there will also be a session for FIBA’s Regular Congress, which will review among other matters the governing body’s recently implemented ‘New Competition System’. The new system will provide for countries playing in two groups and each team playing home and away matches in a round-robin league to decide the final four top teams.
Currently, evaluations are being conducted by a FIBA team to member territories in the Caribbean, to determine whether they satisfy the international body’s regulations for members to host competitions.
The Home and Away Competition system is initially intended to provide greater exposure to aspiring players. The Home and Away matches will begin in November this year and will continue in February and June 2018.
However, participation will be extremely expensive, placing serious financial and organisational pressure on the member associations. Satisfying the financial aspect of hosting a FIBA-sanctioned tournament is a must to be granted to host a tournament.
The major constraint to be presented to potential hosts is the requirement that host countries must have “indoor” facilities – FIBA is not flexible with this requirement. Of greater concern for member countries will be financing accommodation, ground and air transportation, both for themselves and the visitors, if they do not have an indoor facility.
Some of the requirements to be in place at the indoor facility will be adequate locker rooms, showers and bathrooms and medical arrangements. Also, the accommodation must not exceed a certain mileage from the playing venue.
It will be recalled that the Guyana Basketball Federation and the Ministry of Sport spent millions of dollars on the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall to ensure approval for this country to host the Under-16 Championships last year.
In fact, it must be noted that the evaluative team made preliminary and follow-up visits before Guyana received the green light to host the Championships.
In the Caribbean, Guyana is rated as having one of the best indoor facilities apart from Cuba and Puerto Rico.
It is understood that FIBA is not flexible on its regulations for granting approval for a tournament. From the outset, a significant percentage of Caribbean territories will not satisfy the required regulations, particularly the “indoor” facility, hence they could be eliminated from the competition by default.
The alternative or a possible arrangement for these non-compliant Caribbean territories would be to meet the cost for their opponents on their scheduled “home” game by making arrangements and paying for the game to be played in a nearby island with the required indoor facility.
The majority of the CBC members are known to not be in strong financial position and may have to withdraw from the tournament.
Unfortunately, it is understood that the cash-strapped member territories cannot expect financial assistance from FIBA.
