FIBA Europe has confirmed that eight countries have expressed an interest in hosting Eurobasket 2015.
This is the biggest number of formal applications to host a single Eurobasket event, since FIBA Europe became a FIBA zone in 2002, and though the official press release didn’t give away the identity of the eight countries that have applied, it is reported that France and Germany are the early front-runners to co-host the event.
Latvia and Lithuania are also rumoured to have applied with Turkey being the sole representative to stage the tournament in one country.
Original 2015 hosts Ukraine were forced to pull out in mid-June due to the unstable situation between them and pro-Russian rebel forces, which is ongoing.
Acknowledging the difficulty of collecting certain important documentation required for the bid dossier, such as government guarantees, FIBA Europe has extended the deadline for submitting such additional documents to 15 August.
A FIBA Europe evaluation commission is expected to visit the venues proposed in the bids in the next weeks.
FIBA Europe will make a further announcement after August 27, which marks the end of the Eurobasket qualifying round. The final decision on who should host the 2015 tournament will be made in late-September, after the FIBA World Cup of Basketball, which concludes on September 14.
Eurobasket 2015 is scheduled to take place between September 5-20.
FIBA Europe contributed to this report.
