MIES - Horacio Muratore was elected FIBA President for the 2014-2019 term of office at the FIBA World Congress in Sevilla, Spain at the end of August.

He took time to talk to FIBA.com and outline what he sees as the main priorities for basketball's world governing body.

FIBA.com: What do you see as the main priorities for FIBA over the course of your term of office (2014-2019)?
Muratore: This period will have three objectives that we have already started to work on and we will continue until we see them come to fruition.

The first objective is to consolidate the new competition system. By November 2017, we want to have 140 national federations ready to compete. In order to help accomplish this, we have formed the Working Group on National Federations Support and Development which will concentrate on helping national federations grow and be in complete unison with FIBA.

We are very aware of the fact that we need to have more structured federations that are adapted to the present reality of basketball. We want to help them manage both the athletic and administrative aspects of the game so that they can be ready for this new era of basketball. This is needed in order to meet the objectives of FIBA and to incorporate more national federations in the great competition that is the FIBA Basketball World Cup.

So this is a big challenge. My predecessor Yvan Mainini called them pillars. I call them challenges because the pillars are ready and we need to consolidate them.

The second main challenge is to consolidate our 3x3 discipline. A 3x3 Advisory Board has been formed and we have incorporated people to this group that are not specifically within the FIBA structure but who can help a lot. We are very optimistic and confident that we will get the coveted designation by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for 3x3 to be included in the Olympic Games. When that happens, it will confirm and celebrate our efforts.

Let's be clear: this is not about separating 5on5 and 3x3 basketball. There is one FIBA and one sport, but it is a new formula that will allow us to incorporate into the basketball family all those people who were out of our structure and away from the game. Once we have that, we will accomplish many things, especially with the massification of our sport, which is what we need in all our national federations around the world. 3x3 will give opportunities to smaller national federations that maybe cannot play or qualify in a regular 5on5 basketball tournament - for example Andorra, Guatemala, Iraq and other national federations that are now starting to have a presence in our game.

Finally, we need to take advantage of the new governance changes. We want the basketball family to be more united and have more participation. All these changes will enable us to have more open lines of communication and understanding among all institutions.

Everything FIBA will do during the period 2014-2019 is about strengthening our national federations. - Muratore

FIBA.com: So the overall goal is to develop the national federations.
Muratore: Yes, everything that FIBA will do during the period 2014-2019 is about strengthening our national federations. This will be achieved thanks to our working groups. The one that I mentioned previously is directed at maximising those 140 national federations that can actually compete under the new competition system. But along with that, we will have another one - led by Mr Mainini, who was elected President of the International Basketball Foundation (IBF) - with the objective of working on the development of all those smaller national federations who are not immediately ready for the new competition system. We want to be there to help them be structured enough so that at a later stage, they can enter the rotation and be competitive.

I have seen that there is a lot of anticipation on every continent, particularly in the smaller national federations. People have come up and told me they are excited that FIBA will work on these challenges. I tell them that we are looking forward to it too because working together to be united, to be one is FIBA's new and ultimate goal.

FIBA.com: Can you explain what has led to this new approach by FIBA?
Muratore: FIBA has had many important milestones. It was founded in 1932 and held its first-ever FIBA World Championship in 1950. In more recent years, more significant changes took place, like the agreement in the late 1980s-early 1990s for professional NBA players to play in international competitions. This played a major role in the explosion of basketball on a global scale at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. And of course there was also the creation of FIBA's five zones.

We believe the time has now come to focus all of our attention in growing our national federations. This is something that must be done by working together with the zone Central Boards, all of FIBA's staff across five continents and with the help of the IBF.

We need our national federations to restructure and adapt, because we need them to be stronger, more transparent, more democratic and to participate more. If they understand this new moment in time in FIBA's approach and mission statement, they will also understand what they need to do themselves, which is structure and forment basketball in their respective countries. 

Working together to be united, to be one is FIBA's new and ultimate goal. - Muratore

FIBA.com: FIBA has elected a new expanded Central Board. What are your thoughts on its composition?
Muratore: I personally am really happy with this. Everything that had been discussed approved unanimously by the Extraordinary World Congress in Istanbul is now being achieved.

We underlined the fact that there are a lot of stakeholders in basketball and we had to find a way to involve them all in our discussions and to participate in the big decisions. We have the great honour of incorporating the NBA in our Central Board by having Mark Tatum as its representative. We also approved something that was a long time coming: the inclusion of a player representative. We nominated Vlade Divac, who was unanimously approved.

These are important decisions because both the players and the most important basketball league in the world are given the opportunity to work with us and raise their issues. Together we can discuss and do what is best for basketball.

FIBA.com: Can you talk about what will be achieved through having three Vice-Presidents of FIBA (Hamane Niang (MLI), President of FIBA Africa; Turgay Demirel (TUR), President of FIBA Europe; Tian Xiao (CHN), China's Vice Minister of Sport, in charge of basketball)?
Muratore: The work as FIBA President cannot always be completed within the four-year term. So through this decision of having three Vice-Presidents, the opportunity is there to continue the work beyond those four years.

Hopefully, all that we have set out for the period 2014-2019 will be fully realised in five years. But it is probable that we will need to continue with the fourth challenge, that of working with the national federations.

We will incorporate the Vice-Presidents in all the decisions and the long-term programmes. This is how things are done and have to be done at FIBA: decisions taken by the entire family and everyone working together to develop basketball around the world.

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