Monday, March 13th 2017 marks the second anniversary of Kosovo Basketball Federation’s (KBF) affiliation to the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).
On March 13th 2015 Kosovo became the 215th member of FIBA, in FIBA’s Executive Committee meeting, held in Geneva.
KBF’s number one, Erolld Belegu said for the official website of the federation that since then the basketball of Kosovo has faced various challenges, but at the same time has also experienced new international adventures:
“We worked in several directions at once, but that special attention was given to work with youth generations of both competitions. So this has been our main priority, and thanks to that today for the second consecutive year we have 5 youth National Teams in the European Championships, Divisions B and C (male and female). So, in 2015 we had only 2 teams (U16 and U20), but today we have 3 more. At the same time for the first time we have participated in Eurobasket Qualifiers, where although we have not won a single game, we have gained experience in organizational terms, but also in terms of internal organization of the National Team. We have also worked hard to improve the quality of the referees /observers and I believe that we had success, but we must continue to work even harder in this direction. Also, at the clubs level we became significantly better than three or four years ago, because we already have several teams participating in official international competitions, where the quality is of the highest quality. Our relations with FIBA during these two years are to be commended, and this is best proven by the fact that we are entrusted with major projects like with youth generations, as well as referees. This year, our priority is work with coaches and we are working intensively on creating a program for Coaches Education and Licensing. We have done a great job, but the work that awaits us in the coming days, weeks, months and years ahead is even greater. This is the challenge that we have accepted as a federation and will try to do everything in developing and improving the quality of Kosovo basketball. "