BIRMINGHAM 2022 QUALIFYING UNCOVERED
How to qualify for basketball at the 2022Â Commonwealth Games in Birmingham?
Less than 18 month out, clarity of sorts has emerged on the process.
England, as hosts, are guaranteed a berth in both the men’s and women’s 3×3 tournaments. No surprise there. But what of the rest of the UK?
The complexities of having a single Great Britain ranking when it comes to an event where the home countries compete separately were underlined in 2018.
Scotland’s men earned themselves an invite to the Gold Coast, but their women – plus Wales and Northern Ireland – were left out in the cold.
This time, rankings are set to be the determining, MVP has learnt, and how GB sits will have a huge bearing on the fate of the Celts.
Great Britain are presently the 69th-ranked men’s nation in the FIBA 3×3 Federation rankings and 75th in the women. The working premise is that the top-ranked European country from within the Commonwealth on November 1 will receive a berth in Brum.
That position currently belongs to … GB. Should that continue, FIBA has provisionally decreed is that the place would be allocated to a second “British†side.
And that would mean a play-in tournament, provisionally slated for January 2022, between Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man and any of the Channel Islands who wish to take their shot.
The complication, however, comes if GB is overtaken – with Cyprus a mere ten places adrift in the men’s table.
In that scenario, the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are set to be frozen out with only eight sides taking part in each of the competitions.
Because the eighth and final berth – follow the allocation of one entrant for each of the six continental zones – would go to the highest-ranked male and female teams not already qualified … a place almost certain to go to whoever misses out in the original duel between Australia and New Zealand.
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