The 2031 Basketball World Cup will take place in France with Paris, Lille and Lyon as host cities

Never before has the Basketball World Cup been organized in France. The anomaly will be corrected. Indeed, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) announced this Wednesday noon that the 2031 World Cup would take place in France, from August 29 to September 14.

Three host cities were chosen: Paris, Lille and Lyon. The final phase will take place entirely in the capital. On the other hand, no venue has yet been designated to host the matches, although it seems likely that the Pierre Mauroy stadium, which has already hosted international basketball matches during the Paris 2024 Olympics and Euro 2015, will be chosen for the northern city.

“We are interested in applying, but we have to look at the economic feasibility, these are very large budgets, we need commitments and guarantees from private and public partners,” confided Jean-Pierre Huckler, the president of the French Basketball Federation (FFBB), on October 1, 2025.

An announcement that came earlier than expected

“It’s a big competition in the sense that the international federation would like it to be a single country that organizes, while at the moment we are more in first rounds shared between two or three countries, with often one country taking a first round plus the final phase,” underlined the leader, implying some difficulties in setting up the project.

While the submission of applications was expected in April, for an official designation in March 2027, on the eve of the World Cup organized next year in Qatar, the announcement therefore came much earlier than expected.

“We’re watching, because there has never been a Basketball World Cup in France,” said Jean-Pierre Huckler at the time. “There are quite a few things that line up. The international federation believes that if there is a country that can organize this in Europe, it is France. We are coming out of the Olympic Games (Paris 2024) which were euphoric, basketball ticket sales represented 10% of the Olympic Games ticket sales, 1.1 million spectators, it’s pharaonic,” he said.

At the start of the afternoon, the FFBB had not yet reacted to the announcement from the international body.