THE International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Basketball World Cup 2023 which the country is jointly hosting takes further form on Tuesday with the official draw for the qualifiers happening in Switzerland.
Set for 6 p.m. (Manila time), the draw will see 80 vying teams across four regions — Africa, Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe — know their respective groupings for the six qualification windows to be played over 15 months.
FIBA said each qualification window lasts nine days, with the windows running from November 2021 to February 2023. The national sides play home and away games across each of these event windows.
At the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023, which the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia are co-hosting, 32 slots are up for grabs.
Africa will have 16 national teams vying for five spots in the World Cup. The Americas will feature 16 countries going for seven places while the Asia/Oceania region will have 16 teams in their qualifying games going for six spots.
As hosts, the Philippines and Japan are automatically qualified for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023. Both teams will play in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Asian Qualifiers first round and second round, advancing to the next phase as automatically qualified.
Indonesia, for its part, needs to be ranked among the top eight teams at the FIBA Asia Cup 2021 in order to receive automatic qualification as per the decision of FIBA’s Executive Committee.
The European qualifiers will feature 32 countries with the 12 top European national teams earning World Cup entry.
The 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup is scheduled to take place from Aug. 25 to Sept. 10 with the Group Phase taking place in all three host countries, and the Final Phase of the tournament happening in the Philippines.
In winning the hosting job, Philippines-Japan-Indonesia won over the joint bid of Argentina and Uruguay in 2017.
The official World Cup Qualifiers draw will be broadcast live over One Sports and One Sports+ and over the FIBA YouTube channel and Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas Facebook page. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo