As basketball has been increasing popular among elite deaf athletes
around the world. Several international and national basketball
competitions have already been held for several years under an
international organisation of sports for the Deaf - Deaflympics which also governs
and manage several other sports, World Championships and Deaflympic
Games.
On
Saturday 2nd May 1998 in Turkku, Finland, the first provisional
board consisted of President Jussi Raiso of Finland, Vice-President
Aleksas Jasiunas of Lithuania, Secretary Christian Boklund of
Sweden and Board Member Riina Kuusk of Estonia.
In this meeting, together with Adviser Kjell Gunnå of Sweden,
they have recommended that we need a world governing body for
international deaf basketball, so this can be focused entirely
on the core and to improve the standards and the well beings of
deaf basketballers around the world.
With this special establishment meeting, they have founded ‘International
Deaf Basketball Association’ (IDBA) and constructed the first
IDBA Constitution with Statutes and Regulations, and finally started
informing other deaf people interested in basketball around the
world.
On Friday 27th July 2001, a successful official meeting was taken
to ‘officially’ establish its organisation and elected new board
from different corners of the globe. This meeting was taken place
at Rome, Italy during the 19th Deaflympic Games.
The name of IDBA was later changed to DIBF for more corporate
translation.
