MIES (Switzerland) - Following the amendments put forward by the Technical Commission and approved by the FIBA Central Board in March 2020, FIBA has published the Official Basketball Rules 2020.

As of October 1, 2020, the new edition of the FIBA Official Basketball Rules will come into force.

The main changes of the new FIBA Official Basketball Rules 2020 include:

• Definition of the player's "cylinder"
• Definition of the Double Foul
• Definition of an Unsportsmanlike Foul in fast-break situations
• Definition of Table Officials' duties (Scorer and Timer)
• Instant Replay System usage and reporting protocol
• Specifications of the FIBA approved basketball equipment

 In addition to the above, some minor editorial changes have been made.

The Chairman of the FIBA Technical Commission, Mr. Patrick Hunt, said, "These rule changes, approved by FIBA's Central Board, have been designed to raise the standard and quality of our game. The very positive and constructive collaboration between the FIBA Players Commission, the World Association of Basketball Coaches (WABC), the FIBA Competitions Commission and the Rules Advisory Group (RAG) prior to providing proposals to the Technical Commission for their review is greatly appreciated."

According to the established procedure, FIBA's Rules Advisory Group (RAG), comprised of basketball and refereeing experts, closely studied all proposals for the rule changes before submitting them to the FIBA Technical Commission for the final review. During the process, all key stakeholders, including coaches, players, NBA and NCAA representatives, were all involved in the analysis of the rule changes.

In order to facilitate the preparation for the application of the new rule changes worldwide, FIBA has published the following documents:

1.  Official Basketball Rules in English

2.  Official Basketball Rules & Basketball Equipment in English

3.  Official Basketball Rules "Yellow Tracking Working Document" in English. This version of the rules is designated to specifically highlight all the changes made, both - rule changes and editorial changes

4.  Official Basketball Rules & Basketball Equipment “Yellow Tracking Working Document” in English 

5.  Summary of the Rule Changes in English, French and Spanish

These documents, along with the full list of FIBA regulations, can be found in the FIBA Document Library here.

FIBA