FIMBA World Championships Showcases Best of Masters Basketball

Three cities and 26 gymnasiums to be used by about 400 teams and 6,000 athletes from 50 countries over nine days. What went into this being the format for this year’s FIMBA World Championships in Switzerland?

“Because we are crazy and we don’t like simple things,” said Ticino 2025 Organizer Daniel Weber with a laugh.

FIMBA, the Federation of International Masters Basketball, will host its world championships from June 27 through July 6 in the Ticino region of Switzerland with games in Bellinzona, Lugano and Locarno.

Anticipation throughout the region is “extremely high,” Weber said. “It’s high from the local people, then from all the participants who will come because Switzerland, for a lot of them, is like Disneyland. We have people who are essentially telling us, ‘We are saving money. We’re eating rice every day because we want to come to Switzerland.’ So no pressure on us, but people really want to come and it’s going to be magical.”

The organization organizes global masters basketball tournaments for men and women, ranging in age from 35 to 80-and-above. The world championships were last in 2023 in Mar del Plata, Argentina. They were last in Europe in 2019 in Espoo, Finland. The event has been held three times in the United States: Las Vegas in 1993 and Orlando in 2003 and 2015.

The championships rotate between the Americas and Europe but have never been in Switzerland.

“It’s going to be so emotional — just talking about it now, when we will raise the flag and when the Swiss anthem starts, I think everybody will cry from our organization,” Weber said. “All these people mixing together, it’s going to be a social experience like no other.”

New Activations Planned

Organizers are promoting the three host cities as being distinctive with Bellinzona’s ancient castles, Lugano’s luxury boutiques and Locarno’s promenade on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Switzerland’s transit system will allow participants to get to each of the host cities within 15 minutes.

There will also be a delegation parade before the event that will move from Piazza Nosetto to reach Bellinzona Stadium. And for the first time, the organization will activate a series of FIMBA Villages at the competition sites. The villages will give participants and fans the chance to mix together with a series of interactive games and cultural displays with food trucks.

“Hopefully everybody will converge to these points without taking away the freedom to go visit other restaurants, obviously,” Weber said. The organization also hopes to keep athletes and fans around the game sites and to work with the localities on having a deeper economic impact.

“It is very important to us because what we are hoping is that obviously we have the direct income, indirect income and we want to have repeat customers so in five years from now, we want those people to come back with their families,” Weber said. “We want to showcase the country. This is a flagship event both for basketball and for the region.”

More Than A Game

Beyond the basketball, the message FIMBA conveys is fitness no matter the age of a participant.

“Too many times I hear people, 25 years old, 30 years old, say ‘Oh, I’m done with basketball. There’s nothing for me anymore,’” Weber said. “And it is not true. This is what this movement does, you can keep playing all the time.”

The other benefit that FIMBA promotes is getting to know other competitors through all of the various competitions that it has regionally and worldwide.

“You meet new people, new languages, and then you forge friendships that can last,” Weber said. “I’ve seen people telling me, ‘This guy is from Argentina, I’m from Japan, but we met 30 years ago and we still meet every year and we play when we compete and then we have a beer.’ I think it’s a message of peace and hope as well.”