SOFIA (Bulgaria) – A record 41 representatives from nearly every National Federation in Europe attended the fourth meeting of FIBA's Single Point of Contact (SPOC) initiative.
The two-day event that FIBA Europe organized in collaboration with the Bulgarian Basketball Federation (BBF) took place in Sofia from February 23-24.
With the delegates from Croatia, Estonia, Israel, Italy, Latvia joining the SPOC meeting for the first time, the fourth event surpassed the previous high of 34 representatives in the third European meeting, in October 2024 in Bratislava.
Europe is fully compliant with the requirement to have a SPOC appointed by each national federation and the group in Sofia featured participants from a wide array of roles in the European basketball community, such as national federation administrators, legal professionals and former players.
FIBA Executive Director Europe Kamil Novak, and BBF President and FIBA Europe board member Georgi Glushkov were in attendance and addressed the participants.
"FIBA implemented the SPOC network as a decisive response to challenges such as prevention of game manipulation and safeguarding integrity within sport," commented Mr. Novak.
"In Europe we have responded with urgency to these continuously evolving threats and we continue to update our techniques to keep up with the times. It was very inspiring for the SPOC members to see how a legend like Georgi Glushkov, the first ever European player in the NBA, placed so much emphasis on their mission," Mr. Novak added.
"The serious issues related to match-fixing and safeguarding in basketball are very important to us and to all National Federations," Mr. Glushkov said.
"We are proud that FIBA Europe entrusted the Bulgarian Basketball federation with the hosting of the annual meeting of the European Integrity Officers representing over 40 nations."
During the first day of the Sofia meeting the focus was on best practices to identify and combat match-fixing, as well as up-to-date explainers on the current sports betting landscape and competition manipulation. There were also case studies from Czechia, Romania and Hungary as well as a round table discussion on basketball investigation.
The second day meanwhile was almost entirely dedicated to Safeguarding, which makes up a huge segment of each SPOC’s purview.
The SPOC program was introduced in 2022 and requests National Federations in all regions to appoint a single point of contact with FIBA.
It aims to raise awareness of integrity-related regulations and establish a platform for reporting any breaches.
FIBA