MÁLAGA, 8 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB), Jorge Garbajosa, stated that the U-17 World Championship, which runs until July 10 and in which Spain faces Australia this Friday in the quarterfinals, is ” one more step” in the challenge for national basketball to continue “at the highest level”.
“We wanted to hold a different championship, we have experienced four very intense days of basketball and now the Martín Carpena is here, a stage that will make this training tournament be remembered forever”, he commented at a press conference at the Martín Carpena, with the wish that the U-17 team “enjoy this experience as it deserves”.
The organization of this World Cup in Andalusia is “part of a strategic plan launched four and a half years ago” and this plan includes the organization of the World Cup in Tenerife 2018, the EuroBasket in Valencia 2021 and the next U-19 World Cup in 2023 in Madrid.
“Something that this federation is never going to give up is support for the national training player. A few days ago we presented a program, the FEB Futur@, in which Aíto, Pepu, Anna and Nuria have been involved, a a ten-year program that, starting in September, will work on detecting talent and technifying the national teams,” he explained.
Garbajosa also highlighted the creation of the Spanish Mini Club Championship, which joins the rest of the national training tournaments. “In the EBA League we have a registration fee that requires having eight Spanish training players on the squad, with a significant discount if they are U22. In LF2, LF Challenge and the LEB Plata League it is mandatory that there be two training players on the court, not they only have to be on the bench but they have to play,” he recalled.
In this sense, he recalled that this effort on the training athlete has allowed, since 2017, up to 34 players to have debuted with the senior team.