Post by Brian Walshe

This week has been filled with appreciation for the 'joy that has gone before me' recently at FIBA EuroBasket in Cyprus, Finland, Poland and Latvia. Colleagues and partners have celebrated in equal measure: The outstanding production expertise of our HB, FIBA Media Production and commentary Teams. Bravo! The operational excellence of the four LOC's and FIBA Europe. Seemless! The creative elements added to the games and shoulder programming by our dedicated and hard working rights holder partners. In Awe! Or, maybe it was the way that the digital and social content jumped with a tone of voice perfectly matched to some AMAZING Basketball. Constantly entertained! For this post I also want to appreciate the rule makers and the rule keepers. I cannot imagine that Dr James Naismith had dunking, screening or charging fouls' in mind as he invented 'a less physical game for trainee priests' to play in nineteenth century New England. He did appreciate that "he had not made enough rules". He appreciated that the game would be highly physical and that would require intense scrutiny in order to make it fair. What we see today and this is the beauty and joy of this game is highly motivated, crafty, visionary, physically strong athletes pushing the rules to the edge. Rules play a part in keeping this game competitive but you need Referees to enforce those rules and they are often doing so in real time with only seconds to form a view. So, I want to say that without referees there is no game to admire and be astonished by. Toms Circenis Stéphane Bouclier Robi Podgor Andrew Ryan Stephanie Mignot Irene M.Monika Puchner Tim Bokelmann Verena Seligmann Zane Jurjane Vasiliki Kalaitzaki Manuel Tamm Dorothea Jacob Niklas Feld Jan Wykrytowicz Arvydas Rimas Raimonds Zeps Povilas Baranauskas Isabella Della Fiori Alex Tarasanski Amelie Deck Aleksandar Bukavac Stephanie Schultess Jeff Taylor Mike Taylor Tahir Hajat Will Voigt mark clark Shona Thorburn

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