Besides the news that the European Cup (EC) winner of the last two years CORENDON KINHEIM is allowed to start in the EC next year, the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB) also announced at the board meeting last weekend that both tournaments are beginning even earlier than planned. They moved the date for the two events from the week April 6th to 11th to March 30th to April 4th. The request for the rescheduling came from the Dutch and Italian Federations, as both countries have planned to open the 2009 regular season on April 11th. One of the two ECs is being held in Nettuno. The second is also being hosted in Italy due to the early date. Messina and Calabria are being considered as candidates. A final decision and the alignments of the groups will be announced on the next meeting on December 19th in Frankfurt, Germany. The European Cup Final Four is still on for June 19th to 21st in Barcelona, Spain.
The European Softball Federation (ESF) also met last weekend and announced that Italy will host the Softball European Cups in 2009. The Champions Cup will be held in Legnano with two Italian participants in addition to teams from Austria, Russia, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Greece in Pool A. The Winners Cup takes place in Parma with two clubs from the Netherlands and each from Italy, Czech Republic, Russia, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Spain and Croatia in Pool A. AMGA LEGNANO (ITA) and SPARKS HAARLEM (NED) are the defending champions. Both events are scheduled for August 17th to 22nd.