Manel Casas is the Spanish FIMBA representative. In this last months his main focus of activity has been the organization of the European Championship that will take place in Málaga and will be completed with a match of legends, a tournament for non european teams, the Inter G tournament and the 3×3 tournament.

Time flies and we’re at the gates of Malaga’s European tournament. Tell us a bit about the state of the situation after almost two years of work.

At the moment we are in a very busy phase. Registrations, hotel acommodations, facilities, and preparation of the events and associated subjects. Good thing is that there are almost 250 teams registered and that means that several months before we already know that is going to be the european that will congregate the highest number of participants.

FIMBA has been progressing year by year and increasing the quality of its competitions, but Málaga 2020 needs to be the best Maxibasketball tournament of the history. Which are the main news about it?

I’m not going to reveal all the novelties, of course, but let me say that we’re going to integrate all the event in the city and the metropolitan zone. We’re also adding other tournaments such as 3×3 or Inter G. And, that, for the first time, we’re going to unite the European and Panamerican.

The great atractive of Costa del Sol has “forced” this tournament to be Open and admitting non european teams, which will play, but not compete for the continental title. How will their participation be organized?

They will play in the first phase integrated with the rest of teams of the respective categories. In the final phase, the non european teams will play for a “Rest of the World” classification, while the europeans will play for the medals.

How many teams from outside Europe are expected?

At the moment there are more than 30 teams. Most of them from north, center and south America.

We’ve got also representatives from South Korea, Japan and Austrialia. Probably it’s about 40 or 50 non european teams.

The Spanish participation it’s consolidating. Pioneers White Chocolate had already have company at Espoo’s World Championship, and it’s visible an important increase of teams in Málaga.

There are already 19 spanish teams registered, and we know that there are some others working to get to come. And we’ll recover the first team representing FIMBA in the femenine category, who will play +35 with players from Asturias.

Maxibasketball in Spain is here to stay. There will be more than one FIMBA international tournaments, apart from the European.

Indeed, along with the already consolidated tournaments such as Santander Masters, Over 40 (Madrid y Valencia), Murcia, BCN L’Hospitalet and some others, there are new tournaments coming to the competition market. There are more and mor leagues in different territories. It’s an unstoppable phenomenon. 

One of the main surprises of Málaga is the diversity of the competition, and, besides the European Championship will be played a Legends match, the Intergenerational World tournament, a 3×3 tournament and also a Spain-France match of male and feminine national teams in their way of preparation of the Tokio Olimpic Games. 

Yeah, and maybe something more. This tournament is really complex to organize, and we’ll see how the events develope in order to fit everything. It’s not going to be easy, but if we make it, the standards are going to be really hard to beat.

And about the aperture ceremony…

It’s going to be a unique moment. The parade has all the ingredients to make the participants feel an amazing experience.

It is guaranteed that Málaga will breath basketball for ten days besides the competitions, there’ll be fan zone non stop, and different daily basketball-related parties.

There is no doubt that Málaga and its sorroundings are going to be the european capital of sport, but also the World Basketball Capital.

An honor for us and cause of pride of all spanish people.