A Brief History of Arab Basketball Confederation (ABC)
Lebanon invited the Arab countries to meet in Beirut in 1965 to form the first Arab Basketball Confederation; nine countries joined that meeting, they were: Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt.
All the countries in the Meeting decided to elect the first Arab Board of Directors for basketball; the election’s result was winning of Azer Ishak (Egypt) for President’s position by acclamation, Abdelrahman Eid (Syria) first Vice-President, Abdelrahman Alhabab (Jordan) second Vice-President, Antony Batlony (Lebanon) General Secretary, Adham Mashnouk (Syria) General Secretary Assistant, Reyiad Abaza (Egypt) the Treasurer and Eily Kaay for Accounting.
All countries agreed that ABC’s Headquarter would be in Beirut – Lebanon. ABC started its activity after gathering all the data of the game’s activities, the status of the players, administrators, referees in all Arab Federations; the first activity of the Confederation was holding many friendly games between the member countries.
ABC’s Board organized the first international clinic for referees at Damascus – Syria in 1957, William Jones the FIBA General Secretary appointed the French citizen Mr. Robert Bionzel to give a lecture for the learners and test them orally and practically.
In 1974, an International Conference was held in Lebanon to expand the base of the game and a new Board of Directors were elected with the Presidency of Mr. Tony Khory, Mr. Anton Batlony who was appointed as a General Secretary; ABC organized the first Arab Championship for national teams in Baghdad and the second Arab Championship for national teams in Kuwait 1975.
In 1977, ABC’s Headquarter was transferred to the Iraqi Capital, Baghdad; ABC joined the Arab Federation of Sports Games; the Confederation started its activity from its first day of transferring the headquarter to Baghdad and then it organized the third National Teams Championship in Egypt and Mr. Akram Nagy the Iraqi ABC’s President took over the presidency of the confederation and Mr. Fawzy Askar was the General Secretary till 1981. Then, Dr. Mahdy Negm was the President till 1991.
ABC continued its activity in Iraq till 1991 then the Headquarter was transferred to the Egyptian Capital, Cairo; the Major-General / Mohamed Hassanein Omran was the President during the period 1991 – 2002 and Mr. / Nabil Morsi was the General Secretary.
His Highness Prince / Telal Ben Badr Seaod was the President of ABC during the period 2003 – 2015 and the General Secretary was Mr. Hanafy Abotaleb; from 2015 till now the President is the Major-General / Ismail Elkarakawy (Emirates) and the General / Abdalla Shalaby is the General Secretary.
ABC presented a lot of activities and Championships aimed to develop the basketball game worldwide and to serve the teams on all levels; Also, ABC organizes championships for Arab teams and national teams, furthermore, it organizes championships for Arab clubs either they are the League or Cups Champions at their countries and for both gender “men – women); ABC is keen to have annual women championships for national teams and teams. Also, ABC holds Junior and Youth Championships to prepare them to the World Tournaments. ABC working on developing the technical, physical and officiating level for all referees, coaches, statisticians and administrators by holding clinics and specialized courses in each field and on all levels.
ABC works on expanding its activities and develop the levels of teams and encourages all countries to participate in all of its activities and expand the game all over Arab countries and also encourages all the teams who have world ranks to participate in all International and World Tournaments.
العربية