This time the rag is burning between the organizers of the 2024 Games (Cojo) and the international basketball federation (Fiba).
In question, the site to host the preliminary phases of the basketball tournaments.
Fiba had taken down Hall 6 of the Exhibition Center, in particular due to a concern for brightness that the various expert reports had not been able to resolve.
As the Parisian revealed on April 8, the Cojo had then thought about a fallback solution at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in Lille.
The idea of Paris 2024 was to swap the group stages of handball and basketball, with handball in hall 6 in Paris and basketball in Lille.
A solution that was recently presented to Fiba and which has generated new tensions.
This Wednesday, on the occasion of the general assembly of the international federations - during which Tony Estanguet and Étienne Thobois presented the dossier for the Games - Andreas Zagklis, the secretary general of Fiba, severely stepped up to the plate, evoking "the concerns serious about the participation of the best basketball players in the Paris Games".
According to our information, certain star players, in particular the Spaniard Pau Gasol, also a member of the IOC, would have been offended by the conditions proposed by Paris 2024 and even going so far as to question their participation.
The Secretary General thus recalled that Fiba had already agreed to change sites three times in 5 years.
“We are still missing the fourth, and hopefully the last combination, 25 months from the Olympics,” he tackled, believing that the solutions currently on the table were not acceptable.
He thus recalled that Fiba had issued a certain number of requirements: accommodation in the Olympic village, transport for a maximum of one hour to the site and a site that meets the technical requirements.
The Cojo wants to limit costs
According to our information, Paris 2024 would thus propose to Fiba that the teams sleep in the athletes' village of Saint-Denis and make the round trip to Lille by coach.
That is, as Andreas Zagklis reminds us in his speech, a one-way journey of 3 hours.
Permanent accommodation in Lille (as is the case for handball players) would not be an option, in particular because Fiba has asked from the start to be accommodated in the Paris area (since the 1936 Olympics, basketball has always had its competition site in the host city) but also because of the insurances that Fiba must subscribe for the NBA franchises to release the players.
The Pierre-Mauroy stadium would also present a technical problem, which had already, according to our information, pointed out by the international handball federation:
The showdown is therefore likely to continue between Fiba, anxious to guarantee the best playing conditions for its teams, and Paris 2024, which, as Tony Estanguet pointed out, in response to Andreas Zagklis, must "find a solution acceptable to everyone within budget.
And this is where the situation gets even more complicated.
In the midst of a budget review, Paris 2024 can no longer afford to carry out too many technical studies and wishes at all costs to avoid opening a new competition site.
Especially since basketball is not the only sport that will have to move since serious threats hang over shooting and boxing sites.
This game of musical chairs must therefore be done at the lowest cost.
Sending basketball to Lille would thus allow Paris 2024 to catch up a little in terms of ticketing (the Euro basketball tournament in Lille in 2015 had broken attendance records) and thus offset part of the expenses generated by the changes in site.
Not sure, however, that Fiba, which wants to stay in the capital and is targeting Arena La Chapelle (currently promised to badminton) hears it that way.