FIBA International Basketball Federation Fédération Internationale de Basketball
FIBA is actually the acronym from the French name of the organisation Fédération Internationale de Basketball.
However when the organisation was formed in 1932 it was called Fédération Internationale de Basketball Amateur.
The headquarters remained in Switzerland (Geneva and Bern) until 1956 when it moved to Munich in Germany.
In 2002 it was decided to move back to Geneva.
The current Secretary General is Patrick Baumann who has been in this role since 2003.
The word Amateur was officially dropped from the title in 1989.
But the acronym remained because of the first two first letters from the word basketball.
The role of the International Basketball Federation is to:
define the rules of basketball, specify the equipment and to facilitate requirements of the game, regulate the movement of players around the world, control the appointment of international referees, and controls and governs all international competitions.
With the growth of basketball in 1989 the members of the organisation were split into five zones or commissions:
Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
This resulted in continental tournaments such as EuroBasket that is organised in zones leaving FIBA to organise world championships.
The first world championship for men was held in 1950 and in 1953 for women.
In 2010 the men’s championship will be held in Turkey while for the women it will be in the Czech Republic.
Changes to the structure of international youth basketball resulted in dropping the U21 world championships after the 2007 edition.
The U19 world championships cycle changed from four years to two years and from the summer of 2010 a U17 world championship has been added to the calendar.
FIBA are also responsible for the Olympic qualifying tournament.
In our youth basketball section you can find our coverage of the preparation for the summer European championships.
In addition you can also select the senior competitions from the drop-down menu below.
FIBA is actually the acronym from the French name of the organisation Fédération Internationale de Basketball. 
