Basketball New Zealand

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NZ Tall Black haka (Photosport)

Toby Robson, Dominion Post
Basketball New Zealand is determined to send the Tall Blacks to Europe next year in a last-ditch bid to qualify for the Beijing Olympics regardless of Sparc funding.

BBNZ met with Sparc two weeks ago and expects to know whether the government’s sports funding body will buy into its pitch for cash later this month.

But regardless of the outcome, BBNZ’s newly appointed national teams general manager Grant Chapman said not attending FIBA’s Olympic qualifier next July was simply not an option.

“We’ve spent the last seven years establishing New Zealand as an international force and it wouldn’t be worth our while undermining that by not going to this tournament.

“The political ramifications from FIBA (international basketball body) would just be too great.”

The aging Tall Blacks ability to both afford or compete at the Olympic repechage tournament was seriously questioned in the wake of a disappointing 2-1 series loss to Australia in August.

BBNZ’s outgoing chief executive Bryn McGoldrick blamed the constant battle for funding for his resignation with BBNZ forecasting a $30,000 loss amid a bitter round of redundancies.

Since then administrators have been picking up the pieces, restructuring off the court and re-focusing on it.

“The gist of our approach (to Sparc) was not only do we want to develop for the Olympics, but also looking toward the world championships in 2010,” Chapman said.

That did not mean “wholesale changes” for the Olympic repechage, but Chapman said Sparc had made it clear there was a need to invest in the future.

“We have got two priorities next year.

“One is qualifying for the Olympics, but the other is that we have got to start looking ahead and we have to acknowledge that the team we’ve had for the past five years (is aging).”

Chapman said funding the Tall Blacks and Tall Ferns remained a “tricky” process, but he was hopeful that Sparc and the corporate community would continue to share in BBNZ’s vision for the sport.

“It’s difficult to budget for a campaign when you don’t know where the money’s coming from, and you don’t know what your programme will be next year.

“We know we are going to the Olympic repechage, but there are other things around that that are not set in stone.”

BBNZ will interview five candidates for the vacant chief executive’s role next week.

An appointment is expected to be announced before Christmas.