Last two standing in FIBA bidding
The Philippines’ consortium with Indonesia and Japan is one of two finalists selected to make a final presentation in Mies, Switzerland, on Dec. 9 before the FIBA Central Board votes to decide the host for the 2023 World Cup. The other finalist is the two-nation bid of Argentina and Uruguay.
SBP president Al Panlilio said yesterday the consortium’s presentation will be an improved, fine-tuned version from what was made to the visiting three-man FIBA Evaluation Commission at the Conrad Hotel last month. FIBA has allotted 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes for questions from the Central Board. Presenting for the consortium will be SBP chairman emeritus Manny V. Pangilinan, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano and Panlilio.
The consortium will present ahead of Argentina and Uruguay. After the presentations, the Central Board will convene to decide the winning bidder. The Central Board members from countries involved in the bidding will not vote. They are FIBA president Horacio Muratore of Argentina, Pangilinan, Indonesia’s Erick Thohir and Japan’s Yukio Mitsuya. Uruguay is not represented in the 27-strong Central Board. That would leave 23 voters, meaning 12 to clinch.
In 2015, the Philippines and China were the finalists in bidding for the 2019 World Cup. The formal presentations were made in Tokyo and the Central Board voted for China, 14-7. Pangilinan conceived the idea of a multi-nation consortium to address the issues where the Philippines fell short in bidding for the 2019 edition. Argentina and Uruguay took the cue, forming their own version of a syndicate.
“In recent years, we have seen the way in which several countries teaming up to stage our biggest tournaments has been successful,” said FIBA secretarygeneral Patrick Baumann. “This was the case at the last two editions of the FIBA EuroBasket as well as at FIBA AfroBasket 2017 and the FIBA AmeriCup 2017. We are fully confident this formula will also work to great effect for our flagship competition. Furthermore, these are countries with rich basketball traditions and passionate fans.”
Last week, Turkey and Russia withdrew their bids within a day of each other to leave the last two standing. Turkey said it decided to spend the budget designated for the 2023 World Cup on “establishing basketball development centers, the facilitization and dissemination of basketball to the whole country and developing clubs.” Russia backed out with federation president Andrei Kirilenko citing “the negative attitude of the world sports community to Russian athletes and our country’s sport in general.” The IOC’s recent sanctions on Russian athletes testing positive for illegal drug use may lead to a ban on the country at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
“We did a lot of work and got a good experience,” said Kirilenko. “The Federation sincerely thanks everyone who participated in the promotion of our application – the Ministry of Sports, the Interdepartmental Commission, the FIBA Evaluation Committee which visited the Russian cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Perm) we wanted to host the tournament and the leaders of these regions who provided the necessary guarantees.”