{"id":718335,"date":"2026-06-06T04:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T04:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718335\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T04:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T04:56:15","slug":"fiba-still-plans-to-hold-2027-basketball-world-cup-in-qatar-despite-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718335\/","title":{"rendered":"FIBA still plans to hold 2027 Basketball World Cup in Qatar despite Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2014 Despite the ongoing war in Iran, organizers of next year\u2019s FIBA World Cup are not changing plans to hold the top global men\u2019s basketball competition in Qatar in August 2027.<\/p>\n

Andreas Zagklis, secretary general for FIBA, said Friday that Qatari officials have made clear the World Cup \u201cis a project of national importance,\u201d and preparations to hold the 32-team championship, with dozens of NBA stars expected to participate, are \u201cgoing according to schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire tournament is scheduled to be held in Doha, the capital of Qatar and site of the 2022 soccer World Cup, from Aug. 27 to Sept. 12, 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we know how to deal with these situations,\u201d said Zagklis, referring to war outbreaks in Ukraine and the Middle East that coincided with FIBA World Cup qualifying tournaments.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd also, unfortunately, the federations in the area are resilient and are ready to respond in the best possible way,\u201d Zagklis continued. \u201cWe have excellent partners in Qatar. If things arrive at that spot, I\u2019m sure we will have very good and direct conversations, and we\u2019ll find the best possible solution for the players and the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zagklis made his comments ahead of Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks. On Monday in Geneva, he will host NBA officials and their counterparts from EuroLeague for the next round of negotiations to form a singular top European league under the NBA\u2019s umbrella \u2014 commonly referred to as NBA Europe. NBA commissioner Adam Silver and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum have said the NBA is in its final stages of preparations to launch NBA Europe, with a targeted start date of October 2027.<\/p>\n

The NBA would prefer to have an agreement with the EuroLeague, which has several licensed teams that have expressed interest in joining NBA Europe. Zagklis said, \u201cI can tell you I will try with everything I have (to broker) a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, as part of the meetings at FIBA headquarters near Geneva next week, the association\u2019s board of governors will hear an update on World Cup preparations. The World Cup, won by Germany in 2023, is in a country that fell under attack from the Iranian military twice in the last year \u2014 in June 2025 and more heavily in February as retaliation for the United States\u2019 and Israel\u2019s attack on Iran.<\/p>\n

After the February attacks, FIBA canceled World Cup qualifying games across the region that were scheduled for March<\/a> and rescheduled them for June.<\/p>\n

The U.S., as is customary, is likely to field a full team of NBA players for the World Cup, but numerous other countries will also fill their rosters with stars, including Victor Wembanyama (France), Luka Don\u010di\u0107 (Slovenia), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Canada), Nikola Joki\u0107 (Serbia) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece).<\/p>\n

In 2004, Team USA sent a men\u2019s basketball team to the Athens Olympics that was light on its usual star power, in part due to security concerns, and lost three games en route to a bronze medal. The World Cup, now held the year before the Olympics, has proven to be a harder tournament for the Americans to recruit their top stars. Given that the U.S. is the host country for the 2028 Olympics and therefore doesn\u2019t have to win (or even play well) at the World Cup to qualify for the Games, war concerns could make it even harder for the Americans to send the kind of players FIBA wants to see in the World Cup.<\/p>\n

USA Basketball finished fourth at the 2023 World Cup in the Philippines and seventh at the China World Cup in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organizing committee has not stopped a single day,\u201d Zagklis said. \u201cQatar, since, I think, April 1, has not been affected (or) impacted by the hostilities. It\u2019s actually now, as far as we know, playing a mediator role, as it was doing in the past in the area. So we will have a continuation of our promotion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 Despite the ongoing war in Iran, organizers of next year\u2019s FIBA World Cup are not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,590,85],"class_list":["post-718335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}