The tradition of one country hosting the whole EuroBasket tournament could change in 2015 if the proposal of Jose Luis Saez, the president of Spanish basketball federation is accepted by FIBA Europe.
Spain is among several countries interested in hosting EuroBasket 2015 but if their bid is chosen as the best, the tournament could be hosted in a new way, lrytas.lt reports.
The proposal of Jose Luis Saez is to host each stage of the tournament in a different city instead of a traditional way of hosting when the tournament is hosted in a single country.
The idea would work by selecting four cities for the group stage, then the other four cities for the second round and two more cities for the final round.
All of those cities or at least the majority of them would be located in different countries. As an example of possible host cities of a single stage Madrid, Rome, Berlin and Athens are mentioned.
According to Vladas Garastas, the president of Lithuanian basketball federation, Lithuania will support the new model of hosting EuroBasket. The chances that the new model will be accepted by FIBA Europe are further increased by a new liberal management of the organisation.
The most obvious example of the policy of FIBA Europe’s new management was the decision to expand EuroBasket to 24 teams in 2013. The decision was then changed to apply in 2011 with less than a year left until the start of the tournament.
It is obvious that the organisers of a new model EuroBasket would have deal with unhappy fans who would have to spend more to see their team live since it would involve travelling around Europe for each stage.
On the other hand, if the tournament is hosted by a large country the distances between host cities can sometimes be larger than between the two cities located in different countries.
