Bachanski visits FIBA headquarters to discuss future of Polish basketball

MIES - Having recently been re-elected to serve a new term of office, one of the first ports of call for Polish Basketball Federation President Gregorz Bachanski was to meet with FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann.

Bachanski took the opportunity to visit FIBA's Headquarters in Mies, Switzerland on Tuesday and was delighted to be able to discuss some key issues.

"This is my second time at the FIBA House of Basketball as I was here for the opening ceremony [in June 2013], when we were all together with the rest of the basketball world," he recalled.

"Now I am visiting for the first time for a meeting as we are discussing with Patrick Baumann the future of Polish Basketball and how it fits within FIBA.

"It is very important for me and for the Board as we were re-elected recently for a new term of office, so it's very good to fix up what we need to do at the beginning of this period.

"That is the main goal of our visit," added Bachanski, who was accompanied by Jacek Jakubowski, President of the Polish Men's Basketball League (PKL).

With other sports performing highly in his homeland, the spotlight is falling onto basketball and Bachanski is keen for the sport to continue growing and to emulate the achievements of its competitors.

All the time we must improve basketball [in Poland] - Bachanski

"For us, with 30 million people, we are competing against other sports such as volleyball and handball which have had some very good results recently," he said.

The volleyball players won the World Cup and the handball players finished in third place in their World Cup.

"We therefore must improve, since we want to be at this same level in the future.

"We have a good number of young men and women playing basketball.

I believe with participation numbers still high, we are in a good situation. - Bachanski

Part of the process is providing youngsters with positive and inspiring role models and encouraging the biggest names to step out with the national team.

It is something which Bachanski and his colleagues are trying their utmost to make happen - no matter what it takes.

"We went to Washington DC recently and met with our star player Marcin Gortat, who plays with the Wizards to fix up some details to have him at this next EuroBasket later this year.

"We even organised a Polish heritage night in Washington with the help of our ambassadors, so that we had a real Polish home feeling as part of our meetings."

FIBA