WBSC Europe has announced the new formula of the Baseball European Champions Cup for 2024, as part of an overall restructuring of the continental competitions, essential in light of the change from 8 to 4 of the teams involved, coming exclusively from Germany and the Czech Republic.
The absence of Italian and Dutch teams from the most important continental club event arouses curiosity and requires clarification, which we asked the President of the Italian Baseball Softball Federation Andrea Marcon.
“The public announcement of the Baseball European Champions Cup by WBSC Europe is a chapter in the now long history of the restructuring of European club competitions, which began a few years ago and slowed down, like everything, by the covid-19 pandemic – he explained the top FIBS manager – The idea, which had immediately found interest on the part of the Federations and Clubs potentially involved, at least those of some of the most important countries for the discipline, was that of the transformation from a tournament into a league, that is, as a concentrated event in a championship that developed over the course of the season.
A first restructuring step had been announced by WBSC Europe for 2023, which did not then happen and led to the withdrawal by San Marino and UnipolSai Bologna and the participation of Parma Clima.
In the meantime, the WBSC (the World Federation, for clarity) had begun the development of an international club competition intended to involve, through continental phases, all the main championships on the planet: the Baseball Champions League, a trademark registered by the WBSC, which experienced his first episode with the BCL Americas 2023 last November in Mexico.”
Then something happened in the process at the European level. “In 2023, WBSC Europe organized meetings with the Federations of Italy, Holland, Germany and the Czech Republic – continued Marcon – and one with also the clubs to present this format, intended as the European phase of the WBSC BCL, without however a adequate business plan and without answers to questions of a technical nature which are however decisive for organizing an event of this kind.
Subsequently, on this project, the paths of WBSC and WBSC Europe evidently separated: the World Federation illustrated to the National Federations a work program which envisages the start of the Baseball Champions League Europe in 2025, as part of a project considered strategic for the promotion of our sport on a global level which, consequently, envisages a launch concretely supported by the WBSC and its partners, with the direct involvement of the National Federations.
Therefore, the Italian clubs, but also the Dutch ones, preferred to wait for the development of the Baseball Champions League under the aegis of the World Federation rather than employ resources in a project that sincerely appears too improvised”.
Marco Landi
2024-03-28 19:50:03
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