Dubai: Following the successful staging of the 2014 Fiba U17 World Championship, the president of world governing body is convinced the UAE is capable of delivering even the men’s World Cup in the future.

Spain will host the next edition of the Fiba Basketball World Cup in the four cities of Granada, Sevilla, Bilbao and Gran Canaria from August 30 to September 14. The competition will also be the last one for Fiba President Yvan Mainini following the conclusion of his four-year term in office.

“The future looks bright for the sport and for the region. We have had a fantastic nine days of junior basketball here and we leave with many sweet memories. The future looks bright for sure. The men’s World Cup has 32 teams so it can be tough for one country to host so many. But the UAE can perhaps cooperate with another neighbouring Gulf country and stage the competition in the future,” Mainini told media here.

“Having this junior tournament has been a great achievement. Having a basketball competition of this nature fosters peace and friendship among nations and people. Should the UAE decide to organise any of the senior competitions in the future then it can only be good for the further development of basketball in the region,” he added.

“The U17 has been the first step. The second step would be to have a world championship,” Mainini stressed.

Mainini was elected unanimously as the 11th Fiba President during the World Congress held in Istanbul, Turkey in September 2010. The Fiba presidency operates on the principle of continental rotation with statutes limiting the term of office to a single four-year period.

With the completion of the Fiba Basketball World Cup final in Madrid on September 14, Mainini will see the end of his tenure in office heading the second most popular sport in the world. “The last four years have been important for Fiba. We had set an agenda consolidating our presence in Fiba on four pillars and I am glad to say that we have achieved what we had set out for,” Mainini said.

One of the most important changes within Fiba has been the better financial position of the world governing body. And this, in turn, has helped the body to reach out to unchartered territories to spread the sport in recent times. “We have started getting in television rights and marketing revenues and in four years’ time our budget has doubled and that is one of the more healthy signs,” he said.

“Basketball has become even bigger and better and we stay confident of even better times ahead,” Mainini confided.