The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) is the international

governing body A governing body is a group of people that has the authority to exercise governance over an organization or political entity. The most formal is a government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a taken ...

for the sport of

wheelchair basketball Wheelchair basketball is basketball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing a non-disabled sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations (of ...

. IWBF is recognized by the

International Paralympic Committee The International Paralympic Committee (IPC; german: Internationales Paralympisches Komitee) is an international non-profit organisation and the global governing body for the Paralympic Movement. The IPC organizes the Paralympic Games and func ...

(IPC) as the sole competent authority in wheelchair basketball worldwide. International Basketball Federation (or

FIBA 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 ...

) has recognized IWBF under Article 53 of its General Statutes.

History

In 1973, the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF) established the first Sub-section for

. At that time ISMGF was the world governing body for all wheelchair sports. In 1989, ISMGF accepted the name International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) for its former sub-section. With this step wheelchair basketball began its journey for full independence and in 1993 IWBF was established as the world body for wheelchair basketball with full responsibility for development of the sport. Over the next five years IWBF membership grew in size and the federation configured itself into 4 geographical zones.

Members

Zones

IWBF studied several

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

before creating its current zone structure. Based on the number of National Organizations for Wheelchair Basketball (NOWB) with active programs at the national and international level it was decided that IWBF Americas and IWBF Europe could be the same as

FIBA Americas FIBA Americas ( es, Confederación Panamericana de Baloncesto, french: FIBA Amériques) is a zone within FIBA (International Basketball Federation). It is one of FIBA's five continental confederations. FIBA Americas is responsible for the organiz ...

and

FIBA Europe FIBA Europe is the administrative body for basketball in Europe, within the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), which includes all 50 national European basketball federations. In reaction to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIBA Euro ...

. However, because of the limited number of countries with active programs in the rest of the world, IWBF chose to combine some regions to create better developmental and competitive opportunities within the zone. As a result, the last two zones of IWBF are IWBF Asia Oceania and IWBF Africa. Members in May 2022: # IWBF Americas - Americas Wheelchair Basketball Championship - 20 Members # IWBF Europe -

European Wheelchair Basketball Championship The European Wheelchair Basketball Championship, is the main wheelchair basketball competition contested biennially by national teams governed by IWBF Europe, the European zone within the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation. The Eur ...

- 35 Members # IWBF Asia Oceania - Asia Oceania Wheelchair Basketball Championships - 26 Members # IWBF Africa - Africa Wheelchair Basketball Championship - 17 Members

National Members

As of 2021, IWBF has 95 NOWB actively participating in

throughout the world with this number increasing each year. 98 in May 2022.

IWBF Asia Oceania

# Afghanistan # Australia # Bahrain # Cambodia # China # Chinese Taipei # Hong Kong # Indonesia # India # Iran # Iraq # Japan # Jordan # Korea # Kuwait # Lebanon # Malaysia # Nepal # New Zealand # Oman # Palestine # Philippines # Saudi Arabia # Singapore # Thailand # United Arab Emirates

Africa

Algeria Angola Burkina Faso Central African Republic Egypt Ethiopia Gambia Kenya Liberia Morocco Namibia Nigeria Rwanda South Africa Rwanda Tanzania Uganda

America

There are currently 20 NOWBs in the IWBF Americas these are: Argentina Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Peru Puerto Rico Uruguay USA Venezuela

Euro

Armenia Austria Belgium Bosnia & Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Great Britain Greece Hungary Ireland Israel Italy Latvia Lithuania Malta Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Serbia Slovak Republic Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine

Executive Council

IWBF President Maureen Orchard leads meeting

IWBF is governed by an Executive Council that is elected at the World Congress every four years.

Philip Craven Sir Philip Lee Craven (born 4 July 1950) is an English sports administrator, former Paralympic wheelchair basketball player, swimmer and track and field athlete. Between 2001 and 2017 he was the second president of the International Paralymp ...

(Great Britain) who had served as Chairperson of the ISMGF wheelchair basketball Section since 1988 was elected in 1993 as the first President of IWBF. In 2001, Brendan Hancock was elected to the position of President of the

(IPC) and retired as president of IWBF at the World Congress in 2002. Maureen Orchard (Canada) was elected as only the second president of IWBF at that same World Congress in

Kitakyushu is a city located in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of June 1, 2019, Kitakyushu has an estimated population of 940,978, making it the second-largest city in both Fukuoka Prefecture and the island of Kyushu after the city of Fukuoka. It is one o ...

, Japan in 2002.

Classification

In order to make the competitions

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Types Variations of fairs incl ...

, each player receives a point in regard their

physical ability Tracking is separating students by academic ability into groups for all subjects or certain classes and curriculum within a school. It may be referred to as streaming or phasing in some schools. In a tracking system, the entire school population ...

called class, from 1.0 which is the lowest class with the maximum physical disability to the 4.5 which is highest class with the lowest physical disability. The person who performs classification called classifier. Classifiers have Bronze, Silver and Gold badges according to their knowledge and experience. Recently the classification rules made changes and have only two levels, namely the national classifier, the zone classifier and the International Classifier

Don Perriman (Australia) is the current President of Classification Commission Kenneth McKay (Great Britain) Gold Classifier Gholamhossein Shahrabadi (Iran) Gold Classier Toufic Allouch (Lebanon)

Wheelchair basketball national organizations around the world

Wheelchair basketball national organizations have developed in a variety of ways. Most started out the same way as IWBF, as a sub-section of a national wheelchair sport organization. As IWBF matured so did many of its member organizations and now there are several models that IWBF embraces within its membership. In

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

the wheelchair basketball organizations are a part of their

National Paralympic Committee A National Paralympic Committee (NPC) is a national constituent of the worldwide Paralympic movement. Subject to the controls of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), NPCs are responsible for organizing their people's participation in the ...

(NPC). Australia is part of the Australian Wheelchair Athletes Ltd., and others are under the umbrella of a National Disabled Federation such as

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and a ...

who are part of the Bahrain Disabled Sports Federation. In the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

wheelchair basketball is fully integrated into the

Nederlandse Basketball Bond Basketball Netherlands ( nl, Basketbal Nederland) is the governing body of basketball in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1947, and are headquartered in Nieuwegein. Basketball Nederland operates the Netherlands men's national team and Netherl ...

and in Canada the Canadian Wheelchair Basketball Association is fully independent. In all cases where a member is part of a larger federation the IWBF only recognizes the part of that federation responsible for wheelchair basketball.

Member organizations

* Canadian Wheelchair Basketball Association * US - National Wheelchair Basketball Association * Australian Wheelchair Athletes Ltd. * Mexican - National National Paralympic Committee * Bahrain Disabled Sports Federation * Holland - Nederlandse Basketball Bond * Malaysia men's national wheelchair basketball team * Islamic Republic of Iran Sports Federation for the Disabled

Events

* Africa Wheelchair Basketball Championship *

* Wheelchair Basketball World Championship * IWBF U23 World Wheelchair Basketball Championship * Wheelchair Eurobasket * IWBF Champions Cup * André Vergauwen Cup * Willi Brinkmann Cup * IWBF Challenge Cup * Kitakyushu Champions Cup

References

External links

International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF)Wheelchair Basketball Championship-A Division (Adana 2009/Turkey)Asia-Oceania Championship 2009
{{Authority control Sports organizations established in 1989 Basketball organizations

Federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-gover ...

Paralympic Games