Wrong email: Swiss team won't play in BCL because of a clumsy error / News - Basketnews.com

Fribourg Olympic's application to participate in BCL qualifiers was sent to the wrong email address at FIBA by the Swiss Federation. The club now hopes that one of the confirmed teams will withdraw from the competition.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

The Basketball Champions League (BCL) announced the 24 teams that will compete to take the last three remaining spots in the qualifying stage of the tournament. There were no Swiss teams on the list, and the reason is unique.

Fribourg Olympic played in last year's qualifying round but did not make it to the main competition. This year, the club tried to achieve the same goal but an unusual administrative error caused the team to miss out on the opportunity.

"From the sports side, the work has been done. At the administrative level, however, something does not seem to have happened. If there is a fault, it is at the level of the transmitter," Fribourg's president Philippe de Gottrau told via Le Matin.

There is a two-part process in order for the team to apply for a spot in the qualification. First, the team has to send a request to a corresponding country's federation. Then, the federation sends the requests from all teams of the country to FIBA.

This time, Fribourg successfully sent the application to the Swiss Federation. However, the federation did not deliver the request to the right email at FIBA. Instead, it was sent to a person who has nothing to do with the process.

"FIBA received the file. Simply, the file was received by another person in the organization. No one saw that it was not the right address," said Erik Lehmann, the Secretary General of Swiss Basketball.

Fribourg Olympic now hope that one of the participating teams will withdraw from the qualifiers. "There is no solution. Maybe a team will give up participating, but I don't believe it," de Gottrau said.

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