MANILA, Philippines – SBP president Manny V. Pangilinan confirmed the other day that the Philippines has complied with the requisites set down by FIBA to file a formal bid to host one of three Olympic qualifying tournaments on July 4-10 next year and said there has been no advice on any delinquencies in the submission.
At the start, 10 countries expressed interest to bid for the Olympic qualifiers. The Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Iran, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines, Serbia and Turkey signified their intention to bid. Last November, FIBA announced that six countries remained in contention with the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, Serbia and Turkey still in the derby. The cities in the queue to host are Prague in the Czech Republic, Hamburg in Germany, Turin in Italy, Belgrade in Serbia, Manila in the Philippines and a still to be determined location in Turkey.
It’s possible that Turkey may drop out because of the high risk of civil unrest. But if Turkey pursues its bid, the country will be considered a top contender, having hosted the FIBA World Cup in 2010. Turkey’s main basketball arenas are the 10,000-seat Halkapinar Sports Hall in Izmir, the 7,500-seat Kadir Has Arena in Kayseri, the 11,000-seat Ankara Arena in Ankara and the 12,500-seat Abdi Ipekci Arena and the 16,500-seat Sinan Erdem Dome in Istanbul.
The Philippines paid the bidding fee of 20,000 Euros as early as last October and submitted the candidature files as mandated by FIBA a week before the Nov. 11 deadline. FIBA was initially set to announce the three winning bidders on Nov. 23 and to conduct the draw for the three Olympic qualifying tournaments on Nov. 24 in its head office in Mies, near Geneva, Switzerland.
FIBA, however, postponed the announcement to Jan. 19 after the 9-man Executive Committee meeting to decide the winning bidders. The Executive Committee is made up of Argentina’s Horacio Muratore as president, Switzerland’s Patrick Baumann as secretary-general, Germany’s Ingo Weiss as treasurer and Puerto Rico’s Richard Carrion, Turkey’s Turgay Demirel, Mali’s Harmane Niang, Spain’s Jose Luis Saez, New Zealand’s Burton Shipley and the US’ Mark Tatum as members.
The draw for the three tournaments has also been postponed to Jan. 26 at the House of Basketball in Mies. Pangilinan said he has designated SBP executive director Sonny Barrios to attend the draw for the Philippines.
“I think we have a reasonable shot at hosting (one of) the Olympic qualifying tournaments next year, being the only Asian country to bid,” said Pangilinan. “My guess is that FIBA would like to see Asia as one of the three zones, mainly because Asia is a huge potential for basketball.”
Iran was the only other Asian country to express interest in hosting but was struck out when FIBA announced the short list. If the Philippines is awarded the right to host, another Asian country will be included in the cast of countries participating in the qualifiers. The additional country will be the next available highest-placed finisher at the recent FIBA Asia Championships in Changsha. China qualified outright for the 2016 Rio Olympics by virtue of winning the FIBA Asia title. The next three placers – the Philippines, Iran and Japan, in that order – were among 15 countries seeded to play in the three Olympic qualifiers. Three other countries will be allocated slots for the qualifiers as hosts.
Aside from the three Asian countries, the other participants of the Olympic qualifiers are Angola, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Senegal, Serbia and Tunisia. The breakdown of the 15 countries is five from Europe, one from Oceania and three each from Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Of the six remaining bidders, only Germany and Turkey are not seeded to play in the Olympic qualifiers so that the only way either can compete is by hosting one of the tournaments. The Czech Republic, Italy, the Philippines and Serbia are seeded so if any one wins a bid, the best non-qualified team from its continent will be invited to participate in the Olympic qualifiers.
With the postponement of the announcement of the winning bidders, FIBA extended the deadline for the submission of required documents to Jan. 11. A key requirement is a government guarantee for the bid. Barrios, who is on a family vacation out of the country, told The Star in a text yesterday that “we have submitted our bid” so the Philippines was way ahead of beating the new deadline.
Each qualifying tournament will involve only five playing days. The 18 teams will be deployed six to each of the three tournaments. The six teams will be split into two groups of three in the preliminaries where games are played round-robin among groupmates. Then, the top two placers after three days will advance to the crossover knockout semifinals. The two survivors will play in the final. Only the winner of each qualifier will earn a ticket to Rio.
As defined by FIBA, the main evaluation criteria to determine the three hosts of the Olympic qualifiers are player welfare (the best possible conditions for players), stakeholder experience (a first-class event for spectators, teams, media and broadcasters, commercial partners and other stakeholders to include venues filled to capacity and the provision of an appropriate promotional strategy to achieve this goal), state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure (FIBA aims at hosting events in high-level competition venues that meet or exceed its requirements), legacy (the event must bring benefits to basketball in the country, prestige and credit to the host nation and FIBA as well as being of support to the strategic ambitions of the entire basketball family) and commercial model (the event must be based on sound commercial and promotional initiatives and be financially successful).