(FROM L-R) SBP Executives: Vice chair Robbie Puno, president Al Panlilio, Foreign affairs secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, chairman emeritus Manny V. Pangilinan, and Gilas head coach Chot Reyes. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
Tasked to host a once-in-a-lifetime basketball extravaganza in six years’ time, the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) is buckling down to work early as it will send a team to China to observe the 2019 Fiba World Cup preparations.
That is the first step for the Philippines for its joint hosting of the 2023 Fiba World Cup together with Japan and Indonesia.
“We also want to form a team to learn what’s happening in China,” said SBP president Al Panlilio. ”We want send a team there to learn from the good things and mistakes they’re doing that we can apply to us here.”
The 2019 event in China will see the games spread out into eight cities, with the oriental power laying the groundwork on the staging of the global basketball exposition under Fiba’s new calendar format.
The joint bid of the three Asian countries promised the Fiba Central Board a bigger and grander edition in 2023.
And this early, Panlilio wants to show the international basketball federation that the Philippines-led proposal will walk the walk.
“We celebrated a little bit after winning the bid, but the first thing that we had in mind was work has to start right away,” he said.
The country will host the Fiba World Cup for the first time since 1978, with majority of the big games being held in Smart Araneta Coliseum and Mall of Asia Arena.
The other half of the group stages will be distributed between Okinawa, Japan and Jakarta, Indonesia, while the final phase of the tourney will be hosted at Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan.
Despite the enormous preparation the 2023 staging entails, Panlilio is confident that the Philippines’ joint hosting will shatter Fiba attendance records and live up to its promise to the Central Board.
“The highest record of attendance for a Fiba game is 35,000. Meralco and Ginebra went for 54,000, so we believe we can surpass that in the final game if the final game at Philippine Arena is United States versus Gilas. But imagine us in the Finals at the Philippine Arena.”