IWBF President Maureen Orchard announced the dates for the 2014 World Championship for men and for women.

Dates for the Men’s World Championship are July 1-12, 2014 in Incheon, South Korea. 2014 will be the first time that the Men’s World Championship will expand from 12 teams to 16 teams.

Orchard stated that “The expansion to 16 teams will allow greater exposure to the game throughout our zones as more countries earn the right to play in Incheon”. “We know that we will have over 50 countries trying for one of the 16 spots which will be decided at the Zone championships. The competition this year is fierce. At the recent European Championships held in Frankfurt several games went into overtime. I expect more of the same at the Americas Championship in Bogota, Colombia August 4-11.”

Mrs. Orchard also announced that the IWBF World Congress will take place in Incheon during the Championship. The dates for the Congress will be announced later. Mrs. Orchard will be travelling to Incheon August 20 – 22, 2013 to visit with the Organizing Committee and discuss the arrangements for the Championship and Congress.

Orchard also confirmed the dates of the 2014 Women’s World Championship held in Toronto, Canada June 19 – 29. The women’s championship will expand from 10 teams to 12 teams.

Orchard mentioned that “We continue to believe that expanding the number of countries who can participate will expand the reach of the women’s game around the world. We have seen a very healthy growth in countries playing women’s wheelchair basketball in the last few years and we are pleased to reward them for their hard work by enabling more teams to compete at the Worlds. We hoped to see the number of women’s teams allowed to play in RIO 2016 expand to 12, unfortunately this did not happen. We are hopeful IPC will approve an expansion of women’s teams to 12 in 2020.”