An agreement that would permit Ukraine to host the European Basketball Championship in 2017 could be signed in the late July 2014, FIBA-Europe President Turgay Demirel has said.
“I’m optimistic about the future, I do believe by the end of July we’ll sign the agreement. The members of FIBA-Europe Board and Secretary General must prepare amendments to the agreement, which we agreed with the Basketball Federation of Ukraine. I do believe that nothing will hamper this. As soon as we’re ready, we’ll return to Ukraine, the agreement will be signed and EuroBasket 2017 officially will be granted to Ukraine, according to the conditions foreseen in the agreement,” he said in an interview with Basketball Federation of Ukraine (FBU) press service on Monday.
Demirel said that this agreement would be softly amended compared with the agreement to host EuroBasket 2015.
“We understand everything that in the course of next three years should be built the whole necessary infrastructure. We also plan in summer 2016 to host in Ukraine some test event before EuroBasket. We with a great optimism hope that the political situation in Ukraine is stabilized, recently we’ve seen serious improvements. And we hope that the forthcoming championship will give a hope for the better to many people in Ukraine,” FIBA-Europe president said.
During the visit in Ukraine on July 7, Demirel met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Premier Arseniy Yatseniuk and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Poroshenko expressed a hope that Ukraine could provide hosting of EuroBasket 2017 and all necessary conditions for this. The head of the state expressed gratitude for the position of FIBA to postpone the European Basketball Championship that was to be held in Ukraine in 2015 to the year 2017.
As reported, on June 13, the Board of FIBA Europe at a meeting in Munich decided to give Ukraine chance to host the EuroBasket 2017 European Basketball Championship instead of EuroBasket 2015.
