FIBA evaluation commission comes to Kazan

Today the Evaluation Commission of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), which evaluates the readiness of the Russian cities for 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, came to Kazan.

The visit started at the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan. FIBA Evaluation Commission included FIBA Vice President and President of FIBA Africa Hamane Niang, FIBA Treasurer and President of the German Basketball Federation Ingo Weiss, and Deputy-Chairman of the FIBA Technical Commission Lubomir Kotleba. First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Nigmatullin and Deputy Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports of Tatarstan Khalil Shaikhutdinov represented the Republic of Tatarstan at the meeting.

The Commission visited the venues which will host the matches and training sessions (Basket-Hall and Tatneft Arena), as well as hotels to accommodate and provide catering services for the teams, FIBA representatives, honorary guests, journalists, and fans. After the visit to the venues, the foreign guests shared their impressions with the journalists.

"We would like to express our gratitude to the representatives of the Tatarstan Governance who we had a meeting with today, and of course to the Russian Basketball Federation. Kazan is a sports capital of the country, and we have been able to see this for ourselves during the visit. Both the atmosphere and people are great. We also liked the Basket-Hall: you can see it is a home turf for the team. Kazan and UNICS management can be truly proud of it," underlined the FIBA representatives. They also admitted that the seating capacity of the venue meets all the requirements for hosting preliminary matches which can take place in Kazan in case of the victory of the bid.

"Kazan is fully prepared to the possible competitions. We have Basket-Hall and Tatneft Arena which could also play host to the matches, and demonstrated to the guest our pride - the Kazan Arena Stadium. All the requirements we are given are based on the certain regulations. They are absolutely clear and understandable, and we have no difficulties to comply with these regulations. The city has all the necessary infrastructure to hold the tournament," said Azat Kadyrov, Director General of the Directorate for Sports and Social Projects to the journalists.

"Our guests have been to Kazan for several times. Today they shared with us the feedback from their colleagues from other international federations. Kazan is in very good standings thanks to its experience. It helped us with our bid, and we hope it will help us to win," added the Director General.

Russia is one of the candidate countries to host the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Overall, there are 4 bids to host the tournament. Russia and Turkey are the two nations submitting single-host bids. In addition to them, there are Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines teaming up to host the event from one side, and Argentina with Uruguay from the other, who represent the multiple host countries.

On December 9 FIBA will award and announce the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 host(s) as per decision to be made by Central Board.

As it is announced the website of the Russian Basketball Federation, the main ace of our country is the fact that the men's basketball world championships has never been hosted neither in the USSR nor in the Russian Federation, besides the remarkable success in this sport of the both countries.  The USSR team won the world championships three times (1967, 1974, 1982), the Olympics - twice (1972, 1988), and was 14 times European champion - no other European country has such a number of continental titiles. Team Russia won the European championships in 2007, has been vice world champion twice (1994, 1998), gained bronze medals at the Olympic games in London in 2012, and won three titles at the continental tournaments: silver in 1993, bronze in 1997 and 2011.

It should be noted that basketball in one of the most populat sports in Russia alongside football and ice hockey. For its further development it is vital that the young fans and enthusiasts had a chance to see with their own eyes the matches of the best basketball players of the world.