The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) is the international governing body for wheelchair basketball. The IWBF is recognized by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) as the sole competent authority in wheelchair basketball worldwide.... The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) recognizes the IWBF under Article 53 of its General Statutes.
History The Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Games, held in 1947, were the first games to be held and included only a handful of participants (26), and few events (shot put, javelin, club throw, and archery). The number of wheelchair events and participants grew quickly. Wheelchair netball was introduced in the 1948 Games. In 1952, a team from the Netherlands was invited to compete with the British team. This became the first International Stoke-Mandeville Games (ISMG), an event that has been held annually ever since. Wheelchair basketball, as we know it now, was first played at the 1956 International Stoke-Mandeville Games. The US "Pan Am Jets" team won the tournament.
In 1973, the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF) established the first Sub-section for wheelchair basketball. At that time ISMGF was the world governing body for all wheelchair sports. In 1989, ISMGF accepted the name International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) for its former sub-section. With this step wheelchair basketball began its journey for full independence and in 1993 IWBF was established as the world body for wheelchair basketball with full responsibility for development of the sport. Over the next five years IWBF membership grew in size and the federation configured itself into 4 geographical zones.
Variants 3x3 – Introduced in 2021. 5x5 – Standard competitive format.
Members Zones IWBF studied several models before creating its current zone structure. Based on the number of National Organizations for Wheelchair Basketball (NOWB) with active programs at the national and international level it was decided that IWBF Americas and IWBF Europe could be the same as FIBA Americas and FIBA Europe. However, because of the limited number of countries with active programs in the rest of the world, IWBF chose to combine some regions to create better developmental and competitive opportunities within the zone. As a result, the last two zones of IWBF (2005) are IWBF Asia Oceania and IWBF Africa.
Before 2007 or 2005 Africa and west asian in one zone and east asia with oceania in one zone.
111 Members in August 2025:
4 Zones:https://www.iwbf.org/about-iwbf/zones-and-nowbs
IWBF Americas - Americas Wheelchair Basketball Championship - 20 Members https://www.iwbf.org/zones/iwbf-americas IWBF Europe - European Wheelchair Basketball Championship - 35 Members https://www.iwbf.org/zones/iwbf-europe IWBF Asia Oceania - Asia Oceania Wheelchair Basketball Championships - 26 Members https://www.iwbf.org/zones/iwbf-asia-oceania IWBF Africa - Africa Wheelchair Basketball Championship - 17 Members https://www.iwbf.org/zones/iwbf-africa
National Members As of 2003, IWBF has 76 NOWB actively participating in wheelchair basketball throughout the world with this number increasing each year. As of 2021, IWBF has 95 NOWB actively participating in wheelchair basketball throughout the world with this number increasing each year. 98 in May 2022.
IWBF Asia Oceania 26 IWBF Africa 17 IWBF America 20 IWBF Euro 35
IWBF Asia Oceania Afghanistan Australia Bahrain Cambodia China Chinese Taipei Hong Kong Indonesia India Iran Iraq Japan Jordan Korea Kuwait Lebanon Malaysia Nepal New Zealand Oman Palestine Philippines Saudi Arabia Singapore Thailand United Arab Emirates
Africa Algeria Angola Burkina Faso Central African Republic Egypt Ethiopia Gambia Kenya Liberia Morocco Namibia Nigeria Rwanda South Africa Tanzania Uganda
America Argentina Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Peru Puerto Rico Uruguay USA Venezuela
Euro Armenia Austria Belgium Bosnia & Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Great Britain Greece Hungary Ireland Israel Italy Latvia Lithuania Malta Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Serbia Slovak Republic Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine
Executive Council
IWBF is governed by an Executive Council that is elected at the World Congress every four years. Philip Craven (Great Britain) who had served as Chairperson of the ISMGF wheelchair basketball Section since 1988 was elected in 1993 as the first President of IWBF.
In 2001, Brendan Hancock was elected to the position of President of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and retired as president of IWBF at the World Congress in 2002. Maureen Orchard (Canada) was elected as only the second president of IWBF at that same World Congress in Kitakyushu, Japan in 2002.
Classification To ensure fair competition, each player is assigned a classification point value based on functional ability, ranging from 1.0 (greatest physical impairment) to 4.5 (least physical impairment).
Individuals who perform classification are known as classifiers. Classifiers hold Bronze, Silver, or Gold certification levels based on training and experience. Recently the classification rules made changes and have only two levels, namely the national classifier, the zone classifier and the International Classifier.
Don Perriman (Australia) is the current President of Classification Commission
Kenneth McKay (Great Britain)
Gold Classifier
Gholamhossein Shahrabadi (Iran)
Gold Classifier
Toufic Allouch (Lebanon)
Wheelchair basketball national organizations around the world Wheelchair basketball national organizations have developed in a variety of ways. Most started out the same way as IWBF, as a sub-section of a national wheelchair sport organization. As IWBF matured so did many of its member organizations and now there are several models that IWBF embraces within its membership. In Mexico the wheelchair basketball organizations are a part of their National Paralympic Committee(NPC). Australia is part of the Australian Wheelchair Athletes Ltd., and others are under the umbrella of a National Disabled Federation such as Bahrain who are part of the Bahrain Disabled Sports Federation. In the Netherlands wheelchair basketball is fully integrated into the Nederlandse Basketball Bond and in Canada the Canadian Wheelchair Basketball Association is fully independent. In all cases where a member is part of a larger federation the IWBF only recognizes the part of that federation responsible for wheelchair basketball.
Member organizations Canadian Wheelchair Basketball Association US - National Wheelchair Basketball Association Australian Wheelchair Athletes Ltd. Mexican - National National Paralympic Committee Bahrain Disabled Sports Federation Holland - Nederlandse Basketball Bond Malaysia men's national wheelchair basketball team Islamic Republic of Iran Sports Federation for the Disabled
Events International Wheelchair Basketball World Championship Wheelchair basketball at the Summer ParalympicsContinental Africa Wheelchair Basketball Championship Wheelchair basketball at the Asian Para Games European Wheelchair Basketball Championship Wheelchair basketball at the 2023 European Para ChampionshipsOther tournaments Kitakyushu Champions Cup 2015, 2017, 2022, 2023 ASEAN Para GamesClubs IWBF Champions Cup EuroCup 1 EuroCup 2 EuroCup 3Youth IWBF U23 World Wheelchair Basketball Championship IWBF Africa U23 African Championship
References
External links International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) European Wheelchair Basketball Championship-A Division (Adana 2009/Turkey) Asia-Oceania Championship 2009 https://www.paralympic.org/sites/default/files/document/130612102726657_2013_06_Dato+Zainal+Abu+Zarin-website.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20230704140007/https://iwbf.org/aoz/ https://iwbf.org/about-us/zones/