MUNICH (Germany) - The Empowerment of Female Coaches and Referees project has continued with the completion of the first of the scheduled visits, to Prague.

The mentoring program that FIBA Europe devised with the support of the European Union's Erasmus+ scheme, began with its virtual webinars in September and moved on to the in-person visits that took place from October 16-21 in the Czech capital.

FIBA Hall of Fame inductee Natalia Hejkova, who is the head coach of EuroLeague Women contenders ZVVZ USK Praha, and FIBA referee Jasmina Juras were the respective mentors for the six female coaches and six female referees that stood out at the selection process earlier in the summer.

All mentees were selected during the FIBA European Women’s Basketball Summit in Postojna, Slovenia, last summer. In the Coaches branch the mentees that took part in the Prague visit were Mireia Capdevila from Spain, Irene Otamiri from Sweden, Constanze Wegner from Germany and Martina Gargantini from Italy. The referee mentees were Ariadna Chueca from Finland and Laure Coanus from France. 

The referees officiated a game in the domestic Czech league as well as a practice game for ZVVZ USK Praha with individual one-on-one feedback with Juras before observing the EuroLeague Women crew for the game that took place on Wednesday between the hosts and KSC Szekszard.

Meanwhile, the coaches shadowed Hejkova in practices, video sessions, pre-game talk in the locker room and also had one-on-one sessions and a profile with sports psychologist - and program coordinator - Dubravka Martinovic.

The next phase of the mentoring program will be in partnership with FFBB with a specific training program for tall players in December, where coaches will join the practices virtually.

In February, there will be a visit to Barcelona for a week at the Siglo XXI girls academy before concluding at the EuroLeague Women 2022 Final Four in April with two-time FIBA Women's EuroBasket champion coach Marina Maljkovic.

FIBA Europe counts in this project with five national federations as its partners, in the FEB (Spanish Basketball Federation)  FFBB (French Basketball Federation), Basketball Finland,  KSS (Serbian Basketball Federation) and KZS (Slovenian Basketball Federation). 

FIBA