By Cesare Milanti / info@eurohoops.net
Riga, Latvia – Two more games, three medals to award in the ultimate phase of action at FIBA EuroBasket 2025, with Germany and Türkiye contending for gold, Greece and Finland fighting for bronze.
On the eve of the final games of the most anticipated national-team competition, FIBA Europe’s President, Jorge Garbajosa, and FIBA Europe’s Executive Director, Kamil Novak, spoke to the media in the usual press conference.
Jorge Garbajosa opened by explaining and sharing the competition’s global success. “This clearly became a worldwide event more than ever before. There is no other sport, except obviously football, whose European Championship has such a big audience outside Europe,” he said.
“That applies not only to the interest from global media, but also to the huge reach it has directly with regular fans all across the world. As an example, the USA is one of the top three countries in terms of engagement with our digital official channels.”
“Social media numbers, TV audiences, and media interests have already broken the records of 2022 and still have the final part of the event to be played,” he continued.
Kamil Novak joined him. “I want to thank all four national federations, all four countries that organized the event. In these times of uncertainty, nobody knew how long it would go on. At the moment, we have an even more difficult geopolitical situation,” he said.
“So I think the 2025 EuroBasket is a great example that Europe is able to deliver such an event even in very challenging times,” FIBA Europe’s Executive Director mentioned in his opening statement.
Jorge Garbajosa also praised the introduction of the qualifying windows. “In this tournament, we saw again the importance of the impact of the qualifiers windows that we introduced back in 2017,” he said.
“Windows are the accelerators of the development of the national teams in all aspects, such as bringing in new players and helping with the depth of the team rosters. Finland is perhaps the best example of this, making these semifinals for the first time in their history,” Garbajosa continued.
“Let’s not forget that the show will be back in November with the FIBA World Cup European qualifier that will decide which European teams will qualify for the World Cup 2027 in Qatar. Basketball never stops, and in two months from now, it again will be the main talk in 32 countries on our continent.”
Addressing injuries and the possible expansion of rosters
One of the most talked-about topics of the whole tournament regarded the injuries occurring to players on different teams, and the eventual possibility of adding players to the 12-man rosters.
Jorge Garbajosa addressed it. “If we talk about injuries, is one thing; if we talk about having more players on the roster, it’s different. In the second case, we are not in favor, because the data said very clearly that normally the coaches use nine players, maybe up to 10, and the 11 just have limited minutes,” he said.
“We could open the discussions about two players being ready, potentially at home, to be able to replace potential injuries. But this is a very open organization. We have a very large Competition Commission.”
“All these topics can be discussed. If a federation comes up with a good proposal explaining why, how, and when to do it, it’s going to be discussed, and the commission will propose it to the board to be approval or not. But honestly, we are totally open to the discussion,” he added too.
“Believe me, NBA Europe will happen”
During the press conference, the creation of NBA Europe was also addressed. “I think [NBA Europe will contribute to EuroBasket] only in a positive way because basketball is probably the only sport who have at the same time a partner and a competitor in the NBA in the same ecosystem,” Garbajosa said.
“The NBA is probably the best competition for promoting basketball all over the world. [Adam Silver] explained the project very well,” he continued before addressing the relationship with EuroLeague.
“Since I had the honor to be elected in FIBA Europe as President, I’ve been talking with the Euroleague, I think every two weeks, three weeks. So the communication dynamic is open. Sometimes the goals that we want to achieve as different organizations are different or totally different,” he said.
“We have the honor, but also the mandate for our boards to talk with every player in our ecosystem. The discussions are ongoing. And we are very optimistic about the program and how this can impact our ecosystem. The EuroLeague is a great competition; nobody can hide it.”
“There’s a long way to work from today until whenever we start,” he added. “This is going to happen. It’s very clear. Mr. [Adam] Silver announced it publicly, and so did Mr. [Andreas] Zagklis. I did it also. It is not easy to create this competition in Europe, so it’s going to take a while. But this is going to happen.”
“How and when? Let’s see. Some prospects talked about 2027. I think it’s a good year. But obviously NBA is working on it. We are their partners, we want to be their partners, we want to be together with them.”
“Because we truly believe this competition is going to be good for the ecosystem in Europe. But believe me, I have no doubt that this competition is going to happen in the future,” Garbajosa also continued.
Opening game at Santiago Bernabeu in EuroBasket 2009?
While there are still two games to be played at EuroBasket 2025, both FIBA Europe’s President and Executive Director shared how they are already working on 2029.
With Spain, Estonia, Greece, and Slovenia working together as co-hosts, they addressed the decision of not approving the bids coming from Lithuania and the Netherlands, which applied to organize the event.
“They could not be six. We were extremely positively surprised, we had not only six great bidders, believe me that for the board it was extremely difficult to decide,” Jorge Garbajosa said. “The Netherlands and Lithuania deserved it as much as Estonia, Slovenia, Greece, or Spain.”
“We are very glad to check how the federations are working to make every four years a better EuroBasket,” he said before Kamil Novak’s answer to Santiago Bernabeu hosting the next opening game.
“Spain won the bid, and this was a part of their bid. It is not a new idea. I’m very honest. We had actually been very close to playing opening games in a football stadium already in the previous Eurobaskets. At the end, it didn’t happen just purely due to the non-availability of the facilities,” he said.
“This is really something that we have been targeting for many years, actually for decades, to have an opening game or maybe even more games in a football stadium. This is an iconic one. It’s a huge one.”
“We have now four years to work on it. We believe this could be a huge boost for our sport. Now we have to see how this will all look when there is a basketball court in the middle of such a huge facility as Santiago Bernabeu. This is a great challenge,” FIBA Europe’s Executive Director continued.
Press conference with Jorge Garbajosa and Kamil Novak:
PHOTO CREDIT: FIBA