ESA - Valdes upbeat about El Salvador hoops

SAN SALVADOR (FESABAL) – El Salvador might be one of the world’s sporting minnows, but the country’s new basketball federation (FESABAL) president Alfredo Valdes is confident of raising the profile of the game in the Central American nation.

Valdes was installed ahead of former president Oscar Rank and Carlos Laucel in the recent FESABAL elections and is set to follow Mexico and Argentina’s lead and usher in a new era for the sport in El Salvador between now and the end of his term in 2008.

“We want to grow up. We know that we cannot beat Mexico, but we want to be ready to play for the second position,” Valdes told PA Sport.

“That is our main mission. We play against teams like Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala. Obviously, Mexico are the biggest team.

“We also watch the Argentinian league. They are the better example of growing up. We sent five Salvadoran players to a training-camp in Buenos Aires. We want to improve our relations with Argentinian basketball.

“Basketball is a business. We want a league with foreign players. We want to do the same as the other powerful teams did.”

One of Valdes’ main objectives is to create a fully professional league and he revealed: “We have already got some private business initiatives in place to start that mission.

“Our other strategies include creating strong alliances with the Government and FIBA Americas, to market basketball correctly and to implement a programme concerning the lower divisions.”

From Sebastian Nazziconi, PA Sport
Exclusively for FIBA