The Youth and Sports Ministry of Ukraine and the Basketball Federation of Ukraine have expressed their joint position towards hosting of EuroBasket 2015 in Ukraine under which the country won't break off preparations for the championship.
“Ukraine has not given up holding EuroBasket 2015. The tournament is a strategic project on the development of sport infrastructure of Ukraine. This is a principal position both by the ministry, as well as the Basketball Federation,” reads a joint statement of Sports Minister Dmytro Bulatov, President of the Basketball Federation of Ukraine Oleksandr Volkov and Secretary General of the Basketball Federation of Ukraine Oleksandr Larin posted on the Bulatov’s page in Facebook on March 20.
The minister said that the preparations for holding the championship were going to schedule. On March 24, Ukraine’s government scheduled a number of the meetings with the leadership of the Basketball Federation of Ukraine, as well as with the investors of already-built basketball arenas.
The minister said that Volkov and Larin would participate in the meeting of FIBA Europe presidium in Munich on March 22 to cover preparations for EuroBasket 2015 under current developments in Ukraine.
As reported, on March 19, Director of EuroBasket 2015 tournament Markiyan Lubkivsky suggested rescheduling the European Basketball Championship in Ukraine for 2017 due to the current severe economic and political conditions. He addressed to FIBA Europe to entrust European country or a number of countries to conduct the 2015 tournament.
Later on, FIBA-Europe on its Web site said that information had appeared that Ukraine had allegedly decided not to host EuroBasket 2015 and asks that it be postponed until 2017. The Basketball Federation, in turn, sent a communiqué to FIBA-Europe, which described the statement of Lubkivsky as his personal opinion.
On March 20, Lubkivsky said that the leadership of the Ukrainian government must convene an urgent meeting with the investors of the building of arenas to host the matches to save the prospects of their holding.
“Yesterday and today I talked to investors, who said there was a possibility of finishing the building of the arena even is the state stops its support until all conditions are known. According to the information I have, talks between the government and investors on this have been launched. I guess everything will be decided in this or coming weeks,” Lubkivsky said.
