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FIBA Europe announces that the FIBA Europe Executive Committee approved the proposal made by the Lithuanian Basketball Federation to play the EuroBasket 2011 Final Round with 24, instead of 16 teams.

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My only comment on this is: Fiba Europe is so corrupt

So we have 24 team WC, 12 (16?) team Olympics, and now a 24 team Eurobasket?

How dumb is FIBA.

Unoficially Dino Meneghin is lobbying for this alternative for months already. It is a pity when Italy is not on the big stage, but they had themselves to blame. Now everything is back to usual - except for the fact that they brought 9 incompetent NT's with them.

I'm just curious as to why FIBA think players will be available every year for these tournaments.

shaolin wrote:Unoficially Dino Meneghin is lobbying for this alternative for months already. It is a pity when Italy is not on the big stage, but they had themselves to blame. Now everything is back to usual - except for the fact that they brought 9 incompetent NT's with them.

Italy is incompetent as well!!!

Well, the 2013 EC edition would have been already with 24 teams so it's not a big problem... they just anticipated things.

FIBA is to blame, not Meneghin who just asked that and he's not that important on basketball stage. Moreover Lithuanian federation could oppose but they didn't (because business is still business and 24 teams is better than 16)...

This has Italian lobby written all over it. It's the only way they can get them to a tournament apparently.

Rasho Brezec wrote:This has Italian lobby written all over it. It's the only way they can get them to a tournament apparently.

We won medals in our history... last medal just in 2004, not in the prehistory! Instead, Slovenia is a famous medals grabber...

We had a tough time lately but we're rebuilding our team and showing we can compete again... just a little bit of patience.

6 years of rebuilding. What is this, Golden State Warriors?

The Executive Committee was backed in its decision by a majority of the FIBA Europe Board Members, who were also present at the meeting in Istanbul.

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"After it was clear that EuroBasket 2013 will be played with 24 teams we are now even more pleased that the expansion could be carried out two years earlier.

these are the facts - it's this against some weak innuendos about Italy exercising its influence
looking at this with intellectual rigour makes these accusations somehow laughable

Apparently, Israeli basketball federation is suing FIBA for this Italian lobby influenced decision.

I thought Lithuanian federation requested to make the expansion happen earlier?

I think it's a good thing for european basketball, top teams excluded the field is pretty even all the way to 24.

Yay! Finland might just make it in now.

why not taking every team then?

With more teams competing for the title, you'd expect the level of competition to go up as well.

adding more mediocre to bad teams will take the level of competition down

Agreed. Cool if Pachulia, Italian trio and Gortat shows up though.