It is particularly rough. After the enchanted parenthesis of the summer, the return to reality belatedly hit the 3×3 Basketball players, silver medalists at Place de la Concorde on August 5 (17-18 against the Netherlands after extra time).
Franck Seguela and Jules Rambaut (Lucas Dussoulier and Blésois Timothé Vergiat returned to their professional club at 5×5) rode on their Olympic form to end the World Tour like a cannonball with “Team Paris”, beaten in the final of the “Final” in Hong Kong, on November 24, on the wire by a basket from the Dutchman Worthy De Jong, like in the Olympics.
The last dance of “Team Paris”: the French Basketball Federation (FFBB), which built it and financed it 100% with the aim of shining at the Olympics, turned off the tap. “The federation is not intended to finance a professional team”explains the national technical director, Alain Contensoux, recalling that “it was the first time that a sports federation (française) created a professional team ».
“No guarantee”
As a result, the four members of “Team Paris” (Seguela, Rambaut, Hugo Suhard and Paul Djoko) find themselves “in a period of uncertainty”according to Franck Seguela.
They wish to set up a professional team based in Toulouse but are struggling to raise the approximately 600,000 euros necessary to finance the 2025 World Tour season (1re stage on April 26-27 in Japan), a circuit which operates on the model of the ATP in tennis, with different prizes depending on the category of tournaments. “We are really very, very far from it. Honestly, we have absolutely no guarantee about our future”explains Seguela, who has been involved in this project for a year and a half.
Companies and local authorities are approached, with the help of the FFBB as a business facilitator. And if she “think about how to support them logistically”according to the DTN, the vagueness around future credits that could be allocated by the National Sports Agency, in a period of uncertainty and budgetary savings, obscures the horizon.
“If there is no longer a professional team in France, we will fall back behind the other nations”warns Franck Seguela, as the World Cup takes place at the end of June 2025 in Mongolia.
Another scenario for the Blues
The situation in the women's sector is different: these are nations which compete on a non-professional circuit, won in 2024 by the Bleues, who had experienced enormous disillusionment in Paris (elimination in group play).
A group solely dedicated to 3×3 had been built for the Olympics, but that too came to an end: the players returned to their professional 5×5 clubs, where the new coach, Franck Brisson, will draw again (for the men, Karim Souchu was prolonged).
A dedicated France center
Brisson replaces Yann Julien, now responsible for the performance of the French 3×3 teams at the federation, which according to the DTN Alain Contensoux wishes “to structure, consolidate the bases so that we are gradually able to renew our performances at a very high level in 3×3, for boys and girls”.
The podium in Los Angeles in 2028 is targeted for men and women and, in the longer term (3×3 basketball is guaranteed to be on the Olympic program in Brisbane in 2032), the FFBB announced the creation by 2026 of a French center dedicated to 3×3, initially a priori only for men.
The 3×3 appeals to local authorities
The development of the discipline must also involve more tournaments in France. “Since the Olympics, we have been contacted by many more local authorities and large cities who say they are interested in international 3×3 events. », affirms Alain Contensoux.
“They saw what happened at Concorde, the craze, the very social character of 3×3, which attracts young people and can liven up city centers and playgrounds »he adds.
But here again, the uncertainty around the government's 2025 budget, which requires a significant effort from local authorities, obscures the horizon.
