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FIBA executives on officiating in EuroBasket: 'It wasn't bad' / News - Basketnews.com

nqajqrqw7months ago (05-17)Tennis Life119

FIBA officials explained why there are no EuroLeague referees in EuroBasket.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

FIBA recapped EuroBasket 2022 by organizing a press conference with FIBA Europe President Turgay Demirel, FIBA Executive Director in Europe, Kamil Novak, and the German Basketball Federation (DBB) President and FIBA Treasurer, Ingo Weiss.

Three executives discussed various topics with the media, including TV ratings, the FIBA windows system, the attention to NBA superstars, and more.

They also touched on one of the EuroBasket 2022 aspects that caused the most discussions – refereeing and FIBA officials.

Missing points and seconds were ruining the EuroBasket experience, and FIBA heads partially agreed with that.

"I have two aspects [to mention]. Aspect number one: referees are being evaluated before the tournament and during it. There is no coincidence which referee is at the EuroBasket. Obviously, there are mistakes," Kamil Novak started the hot topic.

"I would like to underline one fact that what happened in the game between Lithuania and Germany certainly should not happen. And I think it was a chain of fails which it's hard to repeat. When the first time it was reported to me, I asked tons of questions about how it could happen because there is an official table.

I want to be very open. It was certainly very negative, but I also believe this put a shadow and speed up the discussion, and this is coming to the second part of my answer: you [media] are here, and many of you were at the Eurobasket 2015. You can check the records about officiating in 2015. I can say from our side that this year is not more than what it used to be in 2015," Novak continued.

"This EuroBasket with all the superstars created tension and expectations, and it's a part of the championship, but I wouldn't say that the officiating was bad. You would hopefully agree with me that here, in the final phase, we didn't have such huge complaints because everybody understood that it is not a way to get any advantage.

And again, yes, two really bad moments happened. One was in the Lithuania-Germany game, where we were unhappy, and we immediately took measures, which were hard, but we needed to protect the individuals. The second totally different case happened during the Georgia-Turkey game in Tbilisi. Other than that, we didn't have any unexpected or different comments than in the past EuroBaskets.

There is one big difference. The role of social media has grown. Today you post something, and it creates the atmosphere that something is wrong," spoke Novak.

FIBA EuroBasket 2022 has top players and top coaches but is missing top referees who are officiating in the EuroLeague. Is there any solution to get top EuroLeague referees to the FIBA competition?

"We have in our interest to have not only top players and coaches but also top officials," Novak stated. "I will not agree with you [refering to journalist] that the rankings presented somewhere else are the rankings we have.

Generally, I would have one comment. Referees, who are here, do not referee games in the EuroLeague, but they referee games in the national championships every Saturday and Sunday, also for the top teams. They have already officiated several Olympic Games, World Championships, and EuroBaskets.

Again, yes, we are very critical towards the officials. We want to have the best possible officiating. Unfortunately, I can assure you we will not have games without referees' mistakes, as we have no games without mistakes from players and coaches. It's just the nature of the game.

We try everything and do everything possible in the educational process to minimize the mistakes and the rest - we want to have the best players and best performance in every sense of the game here, at the EuroBasket," Novak told the media.

What makes it impossible to bring EuroLeague referees to the FIBA competitions since they are officiating in the top-level club competition in Europe?

"We would have no criteria. Those officials are not available when we have the windows. So, the EuroBasket is just a peak of the process that starts with the windows. We don't have any evaluations," Novak said.

"You [journalist] mentioned some rankings, but we don't have any rankings, so we don't work on friendship based officiating. This involves a lot of people who evaluate the referees. I wish you could see the evaluation of the referees after every game. It would be somewhere around 15 pages. Every mistake would be analyzed, and how big it was for the game. There is a lot of work behind that.

To have the best, you need to compare, and you need to have a database. It's not like we take the names we know the most. No, there are criteria, and it's very critical. Also, during the season, when the officials are in European club competitions, we also have the evaluation of the referees in their national championships. There is work, strategy, and criteria for selecting the best referees. If we have no data, how can we include [EuroLeague referees]?"

At the end of Kamil Novak's monologue, Turgay Demirel added that EuroLeague clubs also complain about their games in the top-level competition.

Moreover, Demirel and Novak were asked about the possibility of introducing additional sanctions to Russian and Belarussian clubs, which were imposed in late spring.

"We are following everything very closely and we are aware of what's going on," said Demirel. "We took the measure and Russia was sanctioned to not be part of this championship. As FIBA Europe and FIBA World, we also follow IOC [International Olympic Committee] recommendations and decisions.

For the players' transferring to the Russian basketball league or other sports, we are not entitled to interfere. This is their own niche, they are not playing basketball on an international level.

All Russian clubs are sanctioned to participate in European club competitions for next season, as it has been the case in other sports. So, this is actually what I can say. We work very closely with ICO on these issues," Demirel further commented.

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