Las Palmas, Seville and Bilbao begin in Madrid the countdown to the FIBA 2014 World Championship

Sabonis showed the choice of FIBA (FIBA.com)

28-10-2009 16:57

The organization of the FIBA 2014 World Basketball Championship, granted to Spain last May, begun its countdown today in Madrid. Representatives of three of the host cities -Las Palmas, Bilbao and Seville- arrived this morning at the headquarters of the Spanish Basketball Federation to meet in individualized workshops and design the guidelines for the development of the event.

The representatives of Las Palmas, Seville and Bilbao met with Jesús Bueno, Executive Director and General Secretary of the FEB, and Betty Cebrián, Venue Coordinator. These cities will be actively involved in the project´s development. The federation´s bid includes actions that aim to take the championship one step beyond and reach other areas through social and promotion programs.

The outline of the bid´s development agreement has been drawn at the meeting under a five-year proposal for the event. All the officially designated cities committed to one of the bid´s mottos: "A five-year World Championship for five continents." The goal is to turn the FIBA 2014 World Championship into an opportunity for growth and development throughout the world.

In that sense, José Luis Sáez, President of the FEB, travelled to Havana this week, where he participated in FIBA America´s Executive Committee and had the opportunity to propose a cooperation project to the top representatives of American basketball, especially the Cubans.
"Following the commitment that we made with our bid we have begun to outline the development agreement that we proposed in May and that helped us achieve our goal to host the FIBA 2014 World Championship" said Jesús Bueno. “Our mission is to build a 'Five-year World Championship for five continents' and that means that we need to start working right now". The FEB´s Executive Director believes that "we have to turn this event into much more than a 15-day sporting event. It is a very ambitious project that we are ready to turn into the best World Championship in history”.

After the today´s visits, Madrid and Granada will also meet with Bueno and Cebrián in the following days. Three of the five venues -Seville, Granada and Las Palmas- have projected the construction of new arenas.

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