Lieutenant General Ismail Al-Qarqawi, President of the Arab and UAE Basketball Federations, revealed during the honoring ceremony for the participating delegations in the Arab Women's National Teams Championship that the Arab Federation is working to obtain official recognition of Arab championships, similar to continental and international tournaments. He mentioned that he discussed this issue with Greek Andreas Zagalis, Secretary General of the International Basketball Federation, during his visit to Dubai last month. The international official requested that the Arab Federation submit a formal request regarding this matter for it to be studied at the earliest opportunity and for a final decision to be made.
This announcement about these efforts was made during his speech at the commemorative shield exchange ceremony at the championship hotel, where he emphasized the significant progress basketball has made in the Arab region in recent years and the success of three Arab teams reaching the upcoming World Cup finals set to take place next month: Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Al-Qarqawi expressed his happiness with the success of the Arab Women's National Teams Championship currently hosted by Egypt, marking its return after six years. He noted that having only four participating teams does not diminish this success and expressed hope that the number would double in the next edition. He also praised the efforts made by the organizing federation led by Dr. Magdy Abu Freikha, the working committees, the General Secretariat of the Arab Federation, the referees of the tournament, and the cooperation of the Arab federations.