22 November, 2021
28 February, 2023

How to Qualify

Thirty-two European nations are vying for the continent's twelve spots in the flagship tournament. They are Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine. 

Here's how the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 European Qualifiers will play out

The 32 European teams will play six windows for the European Qualifiers. 12 teams will qualify to play in the 2023 edition of the World Cup that will take place in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia.

In the First Round, the 32 teams will be divided to eight groups (A-H) of four. Each team will face the other three teams in their group over the first three windows. These windows will be in November 2021, February 2022 and June 2022.

The top three teams from each group will advance to the Second Round of the European Qualifiers. This group will join another three teams to form another group. All teams will carry over the results from the First Round.

In the Second Round, each team will play games with the three teams from the other group over the final three windows. The Second Round windows will take place in August 2022, November 2022 and February 2023. At the end of these additional six games per team, three teams from each group will qualify to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023.

The qualification process follows the FIBA Competition System successfully used for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019.

When will the windows take place?  

  • 1st Window: November 22 - 30, 2021
  • 2nd Window: February 21 - March 1, 2022
  • 3rd Window: June 27 - July 5, 2022
  • 4th Window: August 22 - 30, 2022
  • 5th Window: November 7 - 15, 2022
  • 6th Window: February 20 - 28, 2023

What's a window? 

The windows are where teams will play the qualifying games. Each of the six windows are nine days in length. Each team will play two games in each window, on a home-and-away basis.

How did teams make it to the European Qualifiers?

For the 32 team field participating, 24 of the teams come from those that qualified for the FIBA EuroBasket 2022. An additional eight teams qualified through the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 European Pre-Qualifiers. 

Which group will advancing teams go to from the First Round to the Second Round?

At the end of the third window, the top three teams from each group progress to the Second Round. In the Second Round, the First Round Groups merge as follows to form a new six-team groups:

  • A and B => I
  • C and D => J
  • E and F => K
  • G and H => L

What happens if teams in the same group finish a Round tied?

Here's how ties will be broken if two teams are tied in classification from the same group (ranked from first tie-breaker to be used to last): 

  1. Win-Loss
  2. Goal difference of games between teams concerned
  3. Higher number of goals in the games between them
  4. Higher goal difference in all games of the group
  5. Higher number of goals in all games in the group
  6. Draw

Do teams carry over their results from the First Round to the Second Round?

Yes! A team's final record after the conclusion of the Second Round includes their win-loss record from the First Round. This helps ensure every game matters throughout the six qualifying windows. 

However, following Belarus and Russia being withdrawn from their respective groups and all results from both teams being annulled, the rest of the teams from their respective groups advance to the Second Round of Qualifiers with four games played. To uniformly classify teams across these two groups (H and G; A and B), the first-round games against the last ranked teams of Group G and Group A will not be considered for the classification to Group L and I. 

FIBA Competition System

For more information, go to the Official Basketball Rules and consult Art. D.1.3 (pages 75-80)

Check out the other regional World Cup 2023 Qualifier sites