Only Ukraine is now competing with Latvia for the final stage of the 2025 European Basketball Championship
Munich (Germany), March 2, LETA. Only Ukraine is now competing with Latvia for the final stage of the 2025 European Men’s Basketball Championship, it became known after the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) suspended Russia’s candidacy on Wednesday.
Hungary, Russia and Ukraine initially competed with Latvia for the final stage. Hungary withdrew its candidacy in February, but Russia’s candidacy was withdrawn after the invasion of Ukraine.
In addition to these four countries, Cyprus and Finland also apply for separate group tournaments.
Since the introduction of the new format in 2015, the European Championships are being hosted in four countries and one of them is also hosting the final stage. Already in 2015, Latvia hosted one of the four subgroups of the European Championship.
It is planned that in 2025 the championship will take place in September.
The 41st championship in history was supposed to take place last year, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics were postponed to the summer of 2021, so the tournament will take place from September 1 to 18, 2022. The Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany and Italy will host the championship this autumn, and the medal fights will take place in Berlin. Latvia has not qualified for the upcoming championship and after Russia’s disqualification, Montenegro is entitled to participate in the tournament.
The Latvian government has supported Latvia’s candidacy for the 2025 European Championship finals.
In the last 16 years, 12 world and European championships for adult and youth teams have been held in Latvia, including the 2015 European Men’s Championship group tournament. At that time, the playoffs took place in Lille, France.
In Latvia, all European championship games have taken place once. It happened in 1937 with the participation of eight teams. For the first time, the Lithuanian team strengthened by compatriots from the USA became the champion, but Latvia ranked sixth.
