FWC 2023

# **2023 Fiba Basketball World Cup (Fictional)**

The **2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup** will be the 19th tournament of the FIBA Basketball World Cup for national men's basketball teams.

The tournament will be the second to feature 32 teams. For the first time in its history, the World Cup to be hosted by multiple nations: the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia from 25 August to 10 September 2023. It is the first World Cup to be hosted in Indonesia, and the second to be hosted in both the Philippines and Japan since they first hosted the tournament in 1978 and 2006, respectively. The tournament will also be the second straight to be held in Asia after China's hosting of the 2019 edition.

The tournament will serve as qualification for the 2024 Summer Olympics, where the top two teams from each of the Americas and Europe, and the top team from each of Africa, Asia and Oceania, will qualify alongside the tournament's host France.

Spain will be the defending champions, having beaten Argentina in the 2019 final.

## **Host Selection**

On 7 June 2016, FIBA approved the bidding process for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup. On 1 June 2017, FIBA confirmed the list of candidates for the hosting of the World Cup.

* Argentina / Uruguay
* **Philippines / Japan / Indonesia**
* Russia (*withdrawn*)
* Turkey (*withdrawn*)

Solo bidders Russia and Turkey ended their bids, leaving joint bids of Philippines–Japan–Indonesia and Argentina–Uruguay left in the race. On 9 December 2017, it was announced that the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia won the bid against Argentina and Uruguay and will host the upcoming World Cup.

## **Qualification**

As co-hosts, Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia automatically qualify for the tournament when they were awarded hosting rights. However, the automatic qualification for Indonesia is provisional, with FIBA imposing a strict condition that the country will have to make its national team competitive by 2021. In order for Indonesia to automatically qualify, it had to qualify for the 2022 FIBA Asia Cup (postponed from 2021) first and finish at least in eighth place. If so, Indonesia will make their FIBA Basketball World Cup debut. On 18 December 2020, Indonesia was awarded the hosting rights for the 2021 Asia Cup, automatically sealing their place in that tournament.

80 teams from four FIBA zones qualified for the World Cup qualifiers through qualification for the FIBA Continental Cups (AfroBasket 2021, 2022 FIBA AmeriCup, 2022 FIBA Asia Cup, and EuroBasket 2022). For Europe and the Americas, additional teams qualified through the pre-qualifiers of the said regions. The participants of both the AfroBasket and the Asia Cup comprise the teams that will also take part in the qualifiers for their respective regions. The first game of the qualifiers took place in Minsk on 25 November 2021 between Belarus and Turkey, as part of the European Qualifiers. The draw for the World Cup qualifiers was held at the Patrick Baumann House of Basketball in Mies, Switzerland, on 31 August 2021.

The first round of the Americas, Asia/Oceania, and Africa qualifiers will feature 16 teams each, whereas Europe had 32 teams. Division A teams were split into groups of four, to be held in a home-and-away round-robin. The top three teams in each group advanced to the second round. In round two of the World Cup qualifiers, teams will be split into six groups, totaling four groups in Europe and two in the other qualifiers. Teams will carry over the points from round one, and face the other three teams again in a home-and-away round-robin. The best teams in each group will qualify for the World Cup. Since 2019, no wild card selection will be held, and the Olympic champions were not guaranteed a spot in the tournament.

In Asia/Oceania, eight slots will be contested but the Philippines and Japan, by virtue of being co-hosts, are automatically given slots, which leaves either six or five slots to be contested to be determined by Indonesia's performance at the 2022 Asia Cup. Five slots will be contested in Asia/Oceania if Indonesia advances to the Asia Cup quarterfinals and qualifies for the World Cup as co-hosts, as per FIBA's strict conditions.

Russia and who participated in the 2019 World Cup, were banned from FIBA tournaments, including the World Cup and its qualifiers due to the country's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Belarus was also banned from FIBA tournaments and the past results of the games they played in the European Qualifiers were annulled.

## Squads

Each team will have a final roster of 12 players; a team can opt to have one naturalized player as per FIBA eligibility rules from its roster.

## Draw

The final draw will take place in Manila in March 2023.

## Format

Similar to the 2019 edition, the tournament will be played in three stages. In the first stage, the 32 qualified teams will be sorted into eight groups of four (A–H), each team in a group will play each other once. The top two teams from each group will then advance to the second group stage. In the second group stage there will be four groups (I–L) of four made up of the teams that advanced from the first round, again playing each other once. The top two teams from groups I to L will qualify for the final knockout phase.