FIBA has established a special Medical Advisory Group (MAG) to review latest scientific knowledge regarding COVID-19 and to advise on the return of international basketball competitions.

The MAG includes the Chair and Deputy Chair of the FIBA Medical Commission; the NBA Director of Sports Medicine; the Senior Advisor to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Executive Director; a University of Melbourne Professor, of Medicine specialised in immunology and vaccine research; and, as observer, the IOC Medical Director.

Considering the number of requests for information and consultation that they have received, FIBA said the MAG met for a second time on Monday and is currently preparing a set of FIBA Guidelines to National Federations on return to play as well as a basketball-specific Risk Assessment Tool which will be issued following the extraordinary Medical Commission meeting next week.

The FIBA Americas Zone Board conducted a meeting last Friday via video conference to address the impact of the current pandemic and the recent adjustments of the Global Competitions in the FIBA Americas Competition Calendar.

Coming out of the meeting, it was approved by the Zone Board that the FIBA Men’s AmeriCup 2021 has been rescheduled to be played between September 2 and September 11 2022, while the Women’s AmeriCup will be set for June 20-27, 2021.
FIBA’s Zone Board approved the implementation of the New Competition System for the Sub Zone of The Central American and Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CONCENCABA) starting in 2021.

The new competition systems simplifies the qualification process for the Centrobasket by unifying the Sub-Sub-Zones Youth Competitions, based on last results and current rankings, two National Federations from each Sub-Sub-Zone (CBC & COCABA) will be qualified directly for the Centrobaskets for the four-year cycle.
For the current cycle, the National Federations of Mexico (if in compliance, currently suspended) and Panama (from COCABA), and, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (from CBC) will qualify directly to the Centrobasket.

The rest of the National Federations will participate in the newly created Centrobasket Qualifying Tournament for four spots in the respective Centrobasket (U-15/U-17).
All youth Centrobaskets will continue to qualify three national teams to the respective FIBA Americas Championships (U-16/U-18).

The Americas Regional Office, along with the Sub Zones (North America, CONCENCABA and CONSUBASQUET) are monitoring the conditions in each of the participating countries, including hosts, and will assess the competitions of the second semester by end June.
Meanwhile, during this suspension period due to the COVID-19 pandemic, FIBA has initiated several virtual programmes to keep the basketball communities active and together.

The Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) has current men’s National coach Junior Hercules and former head coach Lugard Mohan participating in FIBA’s Virtual Coaching Sessions, while Sileena Arjune will be part of the Adelante – Women in Basketball Forum.