Basketball's civil war: FIBA taskforce flies in to summon BBF and SLB for talks
The taskforce commissioned by basketball’s governing body, FIBA, to investigate the ongoing civil war in the British game flew into London last week to hold meetings with all the relevant parties - including the Government.
At stake is the future of the sport in this country, with millions of pounds of funding from UK Sport and Sport England having been pumped into the game only last December and the governing body and top professional league embroiled in a damaging and very public dispute.
The Yorkshire Post understands the three-man panel consisting of Jorge Garbajosa (FIBA vice president and FIBA Europe president), Kamil Novak (FIBA executive director Europe) and Zoran Radovic (FIBA senior director) pitched up at a Heathrow Airport hotel and summoned the key players to face them.
The warring factions of the British Basketball Federation (BBF) and Super League Basketball (SLB) were both in attendance.
FIBA’s taskforce also met with the Department for Culture Media and Sport on two occasions given DCMS’s role in supporting ongoing sustainability while ensuring good governance.
The game has had a wedge driven through it since late winter when the British Basketball Federation awarded the licence to run the men’s professional competition to the GBB League, a group of American investors fronted by former NBA team president Marshall Glickman that had no prior footprint in the British game.
SLB, the consortium of nine clubs including Sheffield Sharks which saved the men’s top flight from financial oblivion the previous summer, has taken the governing body to the High Court over what it claims was an illegal tender process.
It has materialised since FIBA announced its taskforce that the GBB League is pushing back its intended launch date by 12 months to 2027, to fall in line, it says, with the anticipated arrival of NBA Europe into Britain.
In the meantime, the existing league and the governing body have been embroiled in a very public dispute, with the BBF trying to block Governing Body Endorsements for player imports, but failing, and then – the SLB claims – preventing top-level referees from officiating games in the opening weeks of the SLB season. Only two top-level referees from a pool of 20-odd who officiated games last season have taken charge of SLB games in the opening three weeks of this campaign.
FIBA announced at the end of the recent men’s EuroBasket competition that it was setting up the taskforce to investigate the dispute, to ensure BBF clubs are compliant with FIBA rules and to help develop British professional basketball.
All relevant parties are now waiting on the judgment or suggestions that come down from the game’s global governing body amid concern over the future funding and direction of a sport that boasts huge participation numbers among young people.