The International Basketball Federation announced that France has been chosen to host the 2031 Basketball World Cup, the first time the country has hosted this global event. The matches will be distributed among several cities, while Qatar prepares for the 2027 edition, amid increasing international competition to organize the tournament.
Published on: 04/22/2026 - 15:45
For the first time in its history, France has won the honor of organizing the 2031 FIBA Basketball World Cup, according to an announcement by the International Federation of Basketball Association (FIBA) on Wednesday. The cities of Lille, Lyon and Paris will host the championship competitions in its twenty-first edition of the global event, while the capital, Paris, will host the final matches.
The next edition of the tournament is scheduled to be held in Qatar, which will host the first finals on Arab lands during the period between August 27 and September 12, 2027, making it the third consecutive edition in Asia, after the 2019 edition in China, then the 2023 edition, which was organized in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia.
After the United States won two additional titles in the 2010 and 2014 editions, bringing its total to four and five titles, Spain won its second title in 2019 at the expense of Argentina, before Germany won its first title in the 2023 edition by defeating Serbia in the final.
As for France, its best achievement in the World Cup was third place in the last two editions, although it succeeded on the continent in being crowned European champion in 2013.
Japan was chosen to host the 2030 edition of the Women's World Cup.
The International Federation of the Game stressed the importance of the two countries as “prominent organizers of major international events,” such as the 2024 Paris Olympics, where the French men’s team reached the final before losing to the United States.
In October 2025, the President of the French Basketball Federation, Jean-Pierre Honckler, revealed in an interview with Agence France-Presse the interest in a single candidacy to host the tournament.
He said at the time: “We have never previously organized a Basketball World Cup in France. There are a lot of factors intersecting... We are just coming off an exciting Olympic Games, and basketball tickets represented 10% of total Olympic ticket sales, that is, 1.1 million spectators, and this is a huge number.”
France 24/AFP
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