MEETING OF THE FIBA CENTRAL BOARD IN BEIJING continued

The FIBA Central Board has approved on April 25-26 historical rules changes upon recommendation of the FIBA Technical Commission, in order to attempt to further unify all existing game rules and to have in the future only one set of rules for the game of basketball worlwide.

Some of the decisions taken will come into effect as of 1st October 2008 after the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Amongst them interference legality of sliding on the floor while holding the ball contact judged to be unsportsmanlike technical foul for excessive swinging of elbows.

Other rule amendments will come into effect as of 1st October 2010 for high level competitions, or 1st October 2012 for medium level competitions. Amongst them extension of the distance of the three-point line to 675m modification of the shape of the restricted area changes relative to the 24 seconds.

A complete summary of changes approved is available on the FIBA website.

The FIBA Central Board has also announced the following;

The FIBA 2009 U19 World Championship for Men will take place in Auckland NZL on July 2-12 while the 2009 U19 World Championship for Women has been awarded to Bangkok THA from 23 July to 2 August.

The 1st World Club Championship will take place on October 2009 and will feature eight of the very best clubs in the world The bidding process will be issued on June 2008.

The FIBA 2010 World Championship will be played from 28 August to 12 September in Turkey one week later than originally planned in order to avoid overlapping with the dates of the Youth Olympic Games.

The draws for the 2008 Olympic Basketball Tournaments took place in Beijing on 26 April. Five women's berths are still remaining and will be decided in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament that will take place in Madrid SPA from 9 to 15 June, draw on 15 June For the men's tournament three berths will be decided in the Olympic Qualification Tournament in Athens July 14-20 draw on 20 July.