Alberto Fernández chatted for an hour of basketball with the Greek Andreas Zagklis, Fabián Borro and Gerardo Montenegro. There were gifts and a lot of interest in our sport. What happened in a conclave that took place for the 1st time.
For the first time in history there was such a conclave. The president of the Nation (Alberto Fernández), the highest executive authority of the main entity of world basketball (the Greek Andreas Zagklis, Secretary General of FIBA), the president of the Argentine Basketball Confederation (Fabián Borro), the president of the Club Association (Gerardo Montenegro) and the Secretary of Sports of the Nation (Inés Arrondo) met for almost an hour at Quinta de Olivos chatting about basketball, learning about the world and national context of our sport and promptly consulting about the event that will take place this Saturday, at 6 pm, at the Obras Sanitarias stadium, the Intercontinental final that returns to the country after 24 years.
It all started in the morning when Zagklis visited the offices of the CABB and was talking with Borro, who gave him Facundo Campazzo’s jersey No. 7, the emblem of this new breed of the National Team that is the current runner-up in the world. Then they went to meet with the Argentine president, who commented that he likes basketball because of the emotion it generates. He showed his surprise at the way in which national basketball is federatively organized (he praised that there is a Federation per province) and congratulated that such an event, the intercontinental definition, is played in the country, punctually in Works. “Yes, I will have gone to see recitals at the stadium (smiling). But this time I will see it on Public TV”, He said referring to the decision to pass the duel of Quimsa and San Pablo Burgos through an air channel (in addition to DirecTV).
Zagklis gave Fernández two gifts that impressed Fernández: a replica – gold – of the ball that was used in the 2004 Olympic final and also the official scorecard of that match that Argentina won to enter the history of the Games. The Greek, for his part, in addition to the Campazzo shirt, took the Maradona commemorative jersey to the FIBA museum that the players of the selected team exhibited before the debut of the FIBA window at the end of November qualifying for the Americup 2022.
“We tell Alberto many things about basketball, what we are doing and also part of what we want to do. We notice him interested and open, with the idea of helping basketball in the future”, Borro said, who at 5:00 p.m. had another meeting, in this case with Matías Lammens -the Minister of Sports and Tourism of the Nation-, along with Zagklis and Markus Studer, Senior Director of FIBA. “We have been analyzing more tournament organizations in the future,” said the head of the CABB. Lammens congratulated on having managed to bring the Intercontinental to the country, after the success of the bubbles of the FIBA windows and the Champions League that Zagklis himself praised. “Even in this particular context, it is always a joy that our country hosts such important events for world sport,” said Lammens.
Thus an intense day passed that closed with a camaraderie dinner with the top national and international basketball leaders. Everything before the ball goes on the air this Saturday at Obras. Historical moments for Argentine basketball.
