WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari: "We look ahead to an exciting year" in 2024
President Riccardo Fraccari called on the WBSC family to continue it's excellent promotion of baseball and softball around the world and looked forward to another year "full of major achievements and success" in his opening address of 2024.
"We must cherish our dreams and aspire to continue to give children and athletes around the world the opportunity to play our wonderful game," President Fraccari said. "I count on the continued collaboration and efforts of our Continental Associations and National Federations to keep growing baseball and softball across the globe and look forward to celebrating at the end of this year another 12 months full of major achievements and success.
"After a momentous 2023, which saw us host many international events and our sport included on the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 sport programme, we now look ahead to another exciting year this year," he said.
The third edition of the WBSC Premier12 in November will highlight the 2024 international schedule.
"It will be a great finale to a very busy year of events," Fraccari said.
The 2024 events calendar includes 11 World Cup tournaments with the Women's Softball and Women's Baseball World Cups playing their finals in the first editions celebrated with the new two-stage format.
The year 2024 will also go down in the history books as the first to stage a World Baseball Softball Day, honoured on May 10th, the date of the 10th WBSC anniversary.
"It will be an opportunity to join together to commemorate our beautiful sport," added Fraccari.
The first-ever WBSC eBaseball Series World Finals in March and the activity of the WBSC Baseball5 Refugee team, targeting the 2026 Youth Olympics, will also add to the 2024 excitement.
"A WBSC Baseball5 Refugee team competing in a WBSC Baseball5 World Cup and the Youth Olympic Games 2026 is a very important goal for me, which I’m looking forward to see become reality in the very near future," Fraccari said.