Patrick Baumann: 'There's a strong risk that Spain won't qualify for World Cup and Olympics'

Patrick Baumann, head of FIBA, said in an interview with Spanish press agency EFE that there's a strong risk that Spanish NT won't be able to qualify for 2019 World Cup in China and 2020 Olympics Games in Japan. Here's an extract from his interview:

"After the 1992 Barcelona Games we had a very strong globalization movement, basketball has grown a lot until the middle of the 2000s, and we saw that the NBA teams were starting to get closer. We saw the Spanish team world champion (2006), Argentina Olympic champion (2004). There was a moment of change. But after that, we saw that the same national teams were always on the top. This was good for them but not so good for the other teams that do not have the opportunity to arrive at the top. So we had to give a little 'electroshock' to the basketball system with this new schedule," Baumann said.

"I don't understand Euroleague's behavior," Baumann added. "Euroleague has obviously hijacked national teams and European basketball. And now, attacking the national teams is very serious,  it impacts everyone, also them. It has a huge impact on European basketball family. At the same time, the first country that is directly affected is Spain, after having had so many successes, the consequence is that in the end, the risk that Spain is not in the China World Cup 2019 or the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020 is very big. Today is very big"