The FFBB even had to refuse «between 100,000 and 110,000» players at the start of the school year after the two silver medals won by the French teams at the Paris Games this summer.
The French Basketball Federation (FFBB) announced on Saturday that it had broken its record number of licensees during the 2023-2024 season, established at 765,909, an increase of 5.5%. It had 725,009 in 2022-2023, where there had never been so many licensees.
The current season promises to be even more fruitful: the FFBB had to refuse “between 100,000 and 110,000” players at the start of the school year after the two silver medals won by the French teams at the Paris Games this summer – mainly due to insufficient equipment -, specified the president of the FFBB, Jean-Pierre Siutat, during a press point in Paris.
Second team sport behind football
In office since 2010, Situat, who will not seek a new mandate at the general assembly on December 14, welcomed the place of basketball in France, “second team sport behind football”et “claims the fact that France is a great basketball nation in the world, it was not acquired”. “Finishing with the Games in France and this assessment, I consider that the road is over” he added.
Asked about the main satisfaction he draws from his 14 years spent at the head of the FFBB, he highlighted “a work”. “It is not the fact of having succeeded in a bridge or a bend, but of having put the road into service”he continued, spinning a metaphor borrowed from his training as an engineer in public works.
He indicated to finish “physically worn out” his last mandate, notably after having “very bad experience” the year 2023. That year, in contrast to their Olympic summer, the French teams had obtained results below expectations (bronze medal at the Euro for the Bleues, elimination in the 1st round of the World Cup for the Blues) and, on a personal level, he was defeated for the presidency of the European branch of the International Federation (Fiba Europe).
Jean-Pierre Huckler, first vice-president and general treasurer of the FFBB, should succeed him.
“I gradually gave him the files. He even knows some of them better than me”declared the outgoing president.
