Qualification Format
The Qualifying Round was held from 20 August to 20 September 2008. The draw for the Qualifying Round was held on 16 February 2008 in Venice, Italy. There were four groups, one group of five teams and three groups of four teams. The first team from each group and the three best second placed teams have qualified for EuroBasket 2009. The qualified teams were: Bulgaria, Great Britain, Israel, Latvia, Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey.
The best six of the remaining teams then went to the Additional Qualifying Round, which has been held from 5 to 30 August 2009, shortly before the start of the Final Round. The teams qualified for the Additional Qualifying Round were: Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, France, Italy and Portugal. These six teams were divided in two groups of three teams each. After that, the winners of the groups, Belgium and France, have played each other for the last place in EuroBasket 2009, with France winning the two-leg match.
The last four teams have played in the Relegation Round, which was held from 5 to 20 August 2009. The teams qualified for the Relegation Round were: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Ukraine. The bottom two of these four teams, Czech Republic and Estonia, have been relegated to EuroBasket Division B championship. The two teams on top of the group, Hungary and Ukraine, have stayed in EuroBasket Division A.
The draw for the groups of the Final Round as well as for the order of the games of the Additional Qualifying Round and the Relegation Round was held in Warsaw, Poland on 8 November 2008.
EuroBasket 2009 was held from 7 to 20 September 2009.
Read more about this topic: FIBA Euro Basket 2009 Qualification