The FIBA Basketball World Cup qualification is the process that a national
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
team goes through to qualify for the
FIBA Basketball World Cup finals
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. Originally known as the (hence FIBA), in 1989 it dropped the word ''amateur'' from its nam ...
. Qualifiers are held within four FIBA continental zones
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
,
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
,
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
-
Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
play in a combined Asia-Pacific region to qualify for the FIBA Basketball World Cup, which are organized by their respective confederations. One extra berth is allocated for the specific continental zone that hosts the event, in addition to the set berths allotted for the region.
The hosts of the World Cup receive an automatic berth. Unlike in previous editions results from the prior Summer Olympics and continental championships are not taken into account. Until 2014, the winners of the Summer Olympics and continental championships also received an automatic berth, but starting from the 2019 World Cup this is no longer the case.
History
Summary
"+W" are invited teams (wild cards), "+O" are for teams that qualified via the Summer Olympics, "+C" are the defending world champions, and "+H" are for hosts.
Graphical
* Africa
* Americas
* Asia
* Europe
* Oceania
*H; host
Qualification competition used
Olympic, European and South American automatic berths
Before the creation of the first FIBA zones, qualifying for the FIBA World Championship, the original name of the FIBA Basketball World Cup, was via the
Summer Olympics, regional championships and by invitation, although some teams were not able to compete due to political reasons. Teams from North and Central America, which did not have a regional championship until the establishment of the
Centrobasket
The Centrobasket is a FIBA-sponsored international basketball tournament where national teams from Central America and the Caribbean participate. These countries make up the Central American and Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CONCENCABA). Th ...
in 1965, Asia until the establishment of the Asian Championship in 1960, and Africa until the foundation of the African Championship in 1962, could either qualify via the Olympics or by invitation. The Olympics used the
Pan American Games as a qualifying tournament, serving as the first qualifying tournament for North and Central American teams.
In the
1950 FIBA World Championship in Argentina, the top three teams from the
1948 Summer Olympics
The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympiad and also known as London 1948) were an international multi-sport event held from 29 July to 14 August 1948 in London, England, United Kingdom. Following a twelve-year hiatus ca ...
, the top three teams from
1949 South American Basketball Championship, the
EuroBasket 1949
The 1949 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1949, was the sixth FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship, held by FIBA. Seven national teams affiliated with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) took par ...
champion and the top two teams from a subsequent European qualifying tournament, and two invitees and Asia were supposed to compete. , the South American champion, were refused visas, the Asian teams refused to make the long trip to Argentina, and withdrew for financial reasons.
In the
1954 FIBA World Championship in Brazil, the top four teams in the
1953 South American Basketball Championship, the top 3 teams in
EuroBasket 1953
The 1953 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1953, was the eighth FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship, held by FIBA. Seventeen national teams affiliated with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) en ...
and one invitee from the Americas () and two invitees from Asia ( and the ) were supposed to participate; however, the Brazilian government refused entry on teams from Communist countries, except .
The
1959 FIBA World Championship in Chile saw the Olympic champion, the top two teams from
1955 South American Basketball Championship and
EuroBasket 1957
The 1957 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1957, was the tenth FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship, held by FIBA Europe. Sixteen national teams affiliated with the International Basketball Federation (FIB ...
, and seven invited teams. In the
1963 FIBA World Championship
The 1963 FIBA World Championship was the 4th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship for men's teams. The competition was hosted by Brazil.
The Philippines was originally supposed to host the tournament but FIBA ...
, the Olympic champion and the top three teams from
1961 South American Basketball Championship
The South American Basketball Championship 1961 was the 18th edition of this regional tournament. It was held from April 20 to April 30 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Eight teams competed.
Results
The final standings were determined by a round robin, ...
and
EuroBasket 1961
The 1961 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1961, was the twelfth FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship, held by FIBA Europe. Nineteen national teams affiliated with the International Basketball Federation ...
were given places, plus five invited teams, four from the Americas and one from Asia. The Philippines was supposed to host, and was to be Asia's representative, but were suspended and removed hosting rights by FIBA after the government refused to issue visas to teams from Communist countries. FIBA awarded the World Championship to Brazil, and the Asian berth was instead given to .
African, Asian, Central American and Oceanian automatic berths
By the
1967 FIBA World Championship
The 1967 FIBA World Championship was the 5th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship for men's teams. It was hosted by Montevideo, Uruguay from 27 May to 11 June 1967.
Venues
Competing nations
Competition fo ...
in Uruguay, the Summer Olympics and the continental championships in Europe,
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
, South America and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
became established as qualifying tournaments. The two North American nations, the United States and Canada, could still only qualify via the Olympics or via invitation; Mexico participated via the Centrobasket, which it hosted the inaugural tournament. In the next tournament in the
1970 FIBA World Championship
The 1970 FIBA World Championship was the 6th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship for men's teams. It was hosted by Yugoslavia in Sarajevo, Split, Karlovac, Skopje and Ljubljana, from 10 to 24 May 1970. It was ...
in Yugoslavia, the
African champion was given an automatic berth, and regions which didn't have qualifying tournaments, Oceania and North America, were granted invitations. In the
1974 FIBA World Championship
The 1974 FIBA World Championship was the 7th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship for men's teams. It was hosted by Puerto Rico from July 3 to 14, 1974. The tournament was won by the Soviet Union.
Venues
Comp ...
, the reigning world champions replaced the Summer Olympics champions on the automatic berth, with the
Oceanian champion also qualifying outright; the two North American teams, and the were regularly invited as there was no way for them to enter the competition with the Olympics no longer serving as a qualifying tournament. The Summer Olympics returned as an outright qualifying tournament in
1982 when the top three Olympic teams were given berths, but these were again removed in
1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
**Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal enter ...
, when two invited teams participated.
Americas automatic berths
In the first world championship in the open era where professionals were allowed to compete in the
1990 FIBA World Championship in Argentina, the field was reduced to sixteen, and the
FIBA Americas Championship
The FIBA AmeriCup (previously known as the FIBA Americas Championship) is the Americas Basketball Championship that takes place every four years between national teams of the Western Hemisphere continents.
Since FIBA organised the entire West ...
were first used to determine the qualifiers from the entire
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
, instead of the separate then-continental championships in Central and South America; these then became qualification tournaments to the Americas championship. This also allowed the USA and Canada to compete in a qualifying tournament other than the Olympics; those two teams are automatically included and do not have to participate in qualifying. In addition, the defending world or Olympic champions weren't given automatic berths, nor where there invited teams. The Summer Olympics became a qualifying tournament again in the
1994 FIBA World Championship in Canada. This setup continued until the
2002 FIBA World Championship
The 2002 FIBA World Championship was the 14th edition of the competition now known as the FIBA Basketball World Cup, the international world championship for men's basketball teams. The tournament held by the International Basketball Federation i ...
in the USA which were also the Olympic champions; the supposed berth for the Olympic champions were instead given to Americas, the USA's home zone.
Wild card berths
In the
2006 FIBA World Championship
The 2006 FIBA World Championship was the 15th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship for men's national teams. The tournament was hosted by Japan and held from 19 August to 3 September 2006. It was co-organised by ...
in
Japan that saw the field expand to 24 teams, with four invited teams popularly called as "wild cards" were invited by FIBA. This setup will last until 2014, when FIBA announced that they were renaming the competition as the "FIBA Basketball World Cup".
Home and away qualification
In 2012, FIBA announced that the supposed 2018 World Cup would be moved to 2019, the field would expand to 32 teams, and that a new qualification format will be used. Qualification for the
2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup and all succeeding World Cups will see one path of qualification for teams from Asia and Oceania, that the home-and-away system will be used, and that the continental championships will be held quadrennially instead of biennially; and those would no longer be used as qualification tournaments.
Participation
These are the number of teams that participated in all levels of qualification for the World Cup since 2006:
Key to map:
*Blue: Qualified and invited as a wild card
*Light blue: Could still be invited as a wild card (2014 only)
*Yellow: Did not qualify
*Dark gray: Did not enter
*Light gray: Not a member of FIBA
*Black: Disqualified
Current format
Qualification format to be used starting at the
2019 FIBA World Cup
The 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup was the 18th tournament of the FIBA Basketball World Cup for men's national basketball teams. The tournament was hosted in China and was rescheduled from 2018 to 2019, becoming the first since 1967 FIBA World Ch ...
:
First appearance in qualification
The figures below show the first instance a team qualified to the final qualifying tournament (i.e. continental championship). Countries that had not appeared here may have earlier participated in earlier stages of qualification tournaments.
References
External links
*
*
{{FIBA Basketball World Cup