Following the meeting of the FIBA Europe Board in November 2002, it was decided that a new system of qualification would be implemented for the 2005 European Championship for Men.

The 50 national federations of FIBA Europe have been ranked based on the performance of their senior men’s national team over the past 10 years (including Eurobasket 2003). The top 24 federations will play in Division A for a chance to qualify for the 2005 European Championship in Serbia and Montenegro. The remaining federations will play for 2 promotion spots to Division A.

The ranking is as follows:

Division A

Automatic Qualification

The 5 teams that have qualified to the 2004 Olympic Games, namely Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Serbia and Montenegro and Spain, also receive automatic places to the 2005 European Championship.

Group Games

The remaining 19 teams will play for 10 of the 11 further available places. The teams will be divided into 4 groups of 4 teams and 1 group of 3 teams. Games will be played between 8-24 September 2004 on a round robin, home and away basis. The top 2 teams (a total of 10) in each group will qualify for the 2005 European Championship.

One last chance

The 9 teams that do not qualify to Eurobasket 2005 will have one final chance to play for the remaining place in the Championship. They will be divided into 3 groups of 3 teams and play on a round robin, home and away basis in 2005.

The group winners will play in a tournament in Belgrade just before the European Championship. The tournament winner will stay in Belgrade for the Championship.

At the same time, the 3 bottom teams will also play a tournament. The winner of this tournament will remain in Division A while the 2 other teams will be relegated to Division B.

Division B

The teams in Division B will play on a similar basis to Division A, home and away and round robin. They will begin games in September 2004 and play the second leg of games in September 2005.

The group winners will have a chance to play for 2 promotion spots to Division A.

As soon as the registration of teams is complete, the exact competition system will be announced.

Draw

A draw to determine the formation of the groups in Divisions A and B will take place in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro on 13th December 2003.