The Board of FIBA Europe met in Gibraltar at the weekend for the second meeting in the 2006-2010 term of office.

The Board discussed the 2007 national team and youth competition calendar and approved the following:

EuroBasket Men Division A Additional Qualifying Round Dates
8th, 11th, 15th, 18th, 22nd and 25th August 2007

EuroBasket Men Division B Dates
21st, 25th, 29th August, 1st and 5th September 2007
Promotion Games – 11th and 15th September 2007

EuroBasket Women Additional Qualifying Round Dates
29th August, 1st, 5th, 8th, 12th, and 15th September 2007

EuroBasket Women Division B Dates
1st, 5th, 8th, 12th, and 15th September 2007
Promotion Games – 22nd and 26th September 2007

2007 Youth Competition Dates and Venues

Men

U20 A: 6th – 15th July in Nova Gorica, Slovenia and Gorizia, Italy
U20 B: 6th – 15th July in Sopot, Poland

U18 A: 3rd – 12th August in Spain
U18 B: 3rd - 12th August in Bulgaria

U16 A: 20th – 29th July in Crete, Greece
U16 B: 20th – 29th in Skopje, FYROM

Women

U20 A: 13th – 22nd July in Sofia, Bulgaria
U20 B: 13th – 22nd July in Druskininkai, Lithuania

U18 A: 29th June – 8th July in Novi Sad, Serbia
U18 B: 29th June – 8th July in Timisoara, Romania,

U16 A: 27th July – 5th August in Valmiera, Latvia
U16 B: 27th July – 5th August in Italy

The Board also approved a new system of competition for the Division A youth competitions.

All competitions are played with 16 teams and those teams are divided into four groups of four. Three teams from each group qualify to the second round where the 12 total teams are divided into two groups of six. The teams carry through their results from the preliminary round. The top two from each group qualify then directly for the semi-finals.

The system is a slight change from previous years when only two teams from each group advanced to the quarter-final round. This system penalized teams which produced one or two bad performances in the opening games and found themselves out of the top two in the group, and therefore with no further chance to compete for the top eight.

The change was introduced in order to give the participants an increased chance of qualifying to the latter stages of the competition.

EuroBasket and EuroBasket Women 2007

The Board heard presentations from the Local Organising Committees (LOC) for EuroBasket and EuroBasket Women 2007 which will be held in Spain and Italy respectively.

The Board expressed its satisfaction that the LOC’s are on schedule with their preparations and confidence that both events would be a success.