British Basketball
On the Court
The year started with positive results for British Basketball in the 2017 Summer Youth Tournaments, with u18 and u20 Men achieving promotion to Division A. The Senior Women won 3 of their 4 EuroBasket qualifiers leaving them in a strong position to finish the job in November 2018. The Senior Men were involved in a series of close games, including an agonizing overtime loss to Greece, but ended the year with 0-4 record in their World Cup Qualification Group.
Off the Court
Off court, it has been a challenging year for British Basketball.
With no long-term government funding arrangements in place, the focus has been to secure income to sustain the teams competing in competition. Despite sustained effort, BBF have not been able to secure significant commercial investment and at the end of the year, efforts to attract short term investment from the UK Government continued. Positively, Sport England have committed funding through Basketball England to ensure the Youth Teams would be able to compete in summer 2018.
Given the challenging financial position, there was some initial engagement with the Home Countries on a different approach to the long term funding of elite basketball. A key part of this conversation fro a Scottish perspective has been a drive to secure equality of opportunity for Scottish players, coaches and officials. These discussions will continue into the new year in an attempt to find a sustainable long-term plan that keeps teams on court.
