FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann has sent a letter directed to the basketball federations of Greece, Italy, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and Germany, inviting players to represent each country in a meeting held in October to discuss the future of the international game.
The six aforementioned nations recently jointly signed a letter to EuroLeague Basketball, calling for them to change their season schedule to allow players to compete in international competition.
The letter is as follows (The pictures and joint statement is not featured in this article).
Dear Presidents, Friends,
Allow me to thank on behalf also of our president Mr Muratore for your participation in today’s meeting at the house of Basketball and for the strong solidarity you have shown to each other and to the unanimous support to move forward all united in accordance with decisions taken over the years by al the FIBA family for the good of basketball and for the good of all European Basketball Federations.
I believe this format of meeting is very useful to exchange and learn from each other and I would repeat this at regular intervals in the future, maybe once or twice per year, and include also other important National Federations from other continents. Certainly today we’ve learned a lot more about the position of ECA in each country and we are at your disposal to help you in any way possible.
In the meantime, as discussed and agreed this morning, we would suggest 5 October 2017 for a get-together with player representatives from your countries. Kindly inform them and confirm to us that they would be able to attend a meeting at FIBA as of 10 am on that day. Of course, we welcome a representative of your National Federation to accompany them. As you usual, we will provide the appropriate support for hotel accommodations and transport in Geneva. We would appreciate receiving a confirmation by Wednesday 27 September in order to plan and confirm all the arrangements.
Finally, pleased finally enclosed two pictures of this morning as well as a scanned copy of the Joint Statement and the talking points for you to remember when facing the media. I would also suggest to all of you all be active with the media and send the same messages we prepared in the statement as often as possible. If you wish to have more feedback to certain questions please let me know and I will ensure that our communications team will provide you those immediately.
Once again, I thank you for participating in this important meeting. It is a delicate but important moment for the future of European basketball. Your presence and support make it even more valuable. In my humble opinion, we are on the right path and once the dust will settle over these matters it will be a bright future for all the National federations, national teams, and clubs.
With kind personal regards
Patrick Baumann”
Secretary General
