TUR – Baumann admits wild-card process a difficult one

FIBA’s Patrick Baumann: ‘Choosing four wild cards was not simple’ - Watch the interview

ISTANBUL (2010 FIBA World Championship) – Lebanon, Lithuania, Germany and Russia didn’t qualify for the 2010 FIBA World Championship but they’ll be there anyway after receiving the four wild cards for the event.

FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann advised the Central Board on whom to select on Saturday and they approved his recommendations unanimously.

Baumann spoke to FIBA.Com following the Central Board meeting.

Secretary General, the discussions have been going on for months about which teams would get the wild cards. You felt that Lebanon, Lithuania, Germany and Russia should receive them. Tell us a little bit about your recommendations.

FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann: It wasn’t that simple. We had so much interest this time compared to four years ago. This is also probably due to the fact that people started to know about the wild cards. And obviously people were speculating. So the race was quite interesting. We got some heat in certain countries. It wasn’t easy to keep people in the dark up until the last seconds. What was most complicated was that we are here in Istanbul and everyone has been asking, ‘So who are you going to propose?’ So I had to keep my cards covered. I have to admit that the choices we made are very good at the end of the day.

Can you talk about the European teams that received wild cards?

FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann: Germany, Russia and Lithuania – these three countries deserve to be part of the World Championships. They are at the different stage of development of basketball in their countries, but they have guaranteed that they will be coming to Turkey with the best players and therefore it will enhance dramatically the exposure of the World Championship. So far, it is reasonable to say that probably European teams are a notch better than teams from other continents. I hope that somehow we can get the other continents to move a bit more. We had two countries in Asia and two countries in Africa that were trying absolutely their best to get the commitments from their governments in the same way these governments commit to football, which they already do. So it was not far-fetched that they could already commit similar resources and commitments to the team’s preparations to go to the World Championships. Unfortunately, we haven’t got there yet, to where we expected them to go. We chose Lebanon.

Why was Lebanon your other recommendation?

FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann: Lebanon has already been to the World Championship twice, and has performed extremely well at the Asian Championship the last four times. It just missed qualifying this time, and it is a basketball country. They really love basketball… These people really have basketball in their heart. I think the last point is being relatively close to Turkey and having an extremely tight relationship with Turkey, it made a lot of sense also for the Local Organizing Committee to have Lebanon participating. So that’s how finally the choice was made.

Is there any chance of a 32-team tournament down the road since 17 teams wanted wild cards this time?

Secretary General Patrick Baumann: I think we are definitely getting closer to that. I’m not saying that it will be in 2014, although there are discussions going on. But I would expect by 2018 we would have 32 teams. It’s obvious that the level is growing, that we need more African teams playing against others from other continents. They have an amazing potential and talent and we can only do this by increasing the number of teams. And then maybe we should simply get rid of the wild cards and not have these fights. It would be more straightforward to have a qualification procedure for 32 teams. Everyone would be there that has to be there. I think we are now conscious that the basketball level, we have more than 24 teams that deserve to be at the World Championship, that’s certainly good. Ok, we have to discuss organizational issues. We have to discuss, ‘Are the last four to six teams still not too far away in quality?’ So there are still discussions that have to take place. But I think we are going in the right direction, and we’re going towards 32.”

FIBA