European Prospects

The Polish city of Wroclaw will host the U18 European Championship of Division A this summer. From the 21st to 31st July, the sixteen best U18 National Teams will compete to win the Gold Medal with the host and Serbia looking like the favorites. Yesterday, the organization committee had a press conference to give the first details about the event.

During this press conference at the historical Wroclaw City Hall, a 14th century Gothic building, the co-organizers of FIBA Europe, Polish Basketball Federation and the local basketball team of WKK Wroclaw presented the Tournament that will be held in the Lower Silesia region. The budget for the event is currently projected to be around 1.5 million Zloty (375.000 Euro) which is backed more than half by FIBA and the Polish Federation. The organizers expect to earn 250.000 Zloty by Ticket Sales and Marketing.

Przemyslaw Koelner, president of the WKK team that features more than 3000 young basketball players in about 130 teams and also father of the U18 National Team player Jakub Koelner, explained that they want to organize the best event of its kind in history. Marcin Widomski, a member of the Polish Basketball federation thinks that the tournament will be of a very high level as it will feature lots of players that are projected in the NBA Mock Drafts of 2012, 2013 and 2014. This counts especially for the hosting nation as the 1993 born players from Poland can be considered as the best generation in Europe in terms of results. Their Silver Medal at the U17 World Championships 2010 underlined this.

The games will be played at the Hala Orbita which has a seating capacity of 3000 people and in the AWF Sports Arena which is a smaller building. FIBA TV will broadcast the semi-finals and the Final in at least 23 countries from Europe, the United Stats and China. Every day, there will be four games scheduled in every gym. The teams will be lodged in the Hotel Orbis while the officials and referees will stay at the local Park Plaza hotel. You can book your Hotel in Wroclaw now with our partner AccorHotels and get a great rate (Pay for 2 nights, enjoy 3).

The tournament is organized under the slogan “I Believe” and you can follow it of course here on EuropeanProspects and on the official website of the tournament.