NOVI SAD MEETS THE REQUIREMENTS FOR HOSTING THE EUROPEAN VETERAN BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

Novi Sad will host the European Veteran Basketball Championship between 25th June and 3rd July 2016. For that reason, leaders of world and European veteran basketball organizations visited Novi Sad in order to perform a control of the conditions for the organization of this event and talk to the City representatives and organizers about the upcoming activities. At the press conference held at the PC Sports and Business Centre "Vojvodina”, member of the City Council in charge of sports and youth Predrag Svilar emphasized the importance of this event for the city, in terms of sport, economy and tourism.

- During the nine-day event, Novi Sad will welcome European basketball veterans and over 2000 visitors, which will be an excellent promotion of our city and basketball, a sport that we pride ourselves in and which we rightly consider our national sport. It will be another occasion for us to prove ourselves as good hosts of big sports competitions and to send a wonderful picture of Novi Sad to Europe – said Predrag Svilar.

Representative of the World Veteran Basketball Organization Ruben Lamas and President of the European Veteran Basketball Organization Vincenc Butala attended the press conference and expressed great satisfaction with the capacities of the PC Sports and Business Centre "Vojvodina” and emphasized that Novi Sad meets all the requirements for the organization of one of the best editions of this competition.

-This competition is a major European event and I am glad that we made sure that Novi Sad has the needed capacity and potential for its successful implementation.  I want to thank all those who will give their contribution to the event as well as to emphasize that all guests, upon returning from the competition, will be the best ambassadors of your City - Ruben Lamas said and added that two teams from the United States will also participate in the competition.

PC Sports and Business Centre "Vojvodina” manager Milan Balać thanked for the bestowed confidence and stressed that PC Sports and Business Centre "Vojvodina" with its capacities and good human resources will set a high standard. He also announced that the Championship will feature cultural events, thus offering the additional entertainment to the guests. The competition in Novi Sad will be the ninth consecutive European Veteran Basketball Championship. Over the last three European Championships between 100 and 120 teams took part, which is between 1800 and 2500 participants and accompanying persons from teams from all over Europe. The Championship which will be held in Novi Sad is expected to attract 120 veteran basketball teams.

- Over the past years we have invested great effort to convince FIMBA leaders in our organizational capabilities and infrastructure capacities of Novi Sad. I am very glad that this work has positively resulted, and I want to thank the representatives of the City who have contributed to this success - Miodrag Hadžibabić, the President of the Championship’s Organizing Committee, concluded.

Novi Sad, 9th April 2015