New IBAF head proposes making World Cup a WBC qualifier

Riccardo Fraccari, the newly elected president of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), has preached his desire to popularize the IBAF since taking office.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, Fraccari voiced one possible idea in hopes of bringing that plan to fruition—making the IBAF Baseball World Cup a qualifying tournament for the World Baseball Classic.

That plan is in the preliminary stages, so details haven’t been provided, and it’s unknown whether it could work.

At this point, though, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of international business operations, Paul Archey, said there isn’t much to say on the matter.

“We really don’t have a comment until I speak with [Fraccari] about it,” Archey told MLB.com. “He’s the new president, he just started, he’s going to come and meet with us soon, and at that point we’ll sit down and talk to him about a host of ideas.

“The idea that Riccardo has, at some point, he’ll want to talk to us about it.”

The Classic is a joint venture between MLB and the MLB Players’ Association, and it’s sanctioned by the IBAF.

The AP reported that Fraccari wants to “shake up” baseball’s World Cup format and make another attempt to get the sport back into the Olympics. He also suggested that baseball needs to work with softball to return to the Games for 2020.

Regarding the idea of making the IBAF World Cup a qualifier to the Classic, Archey said the two have not had talks about it yet, but could do so in December or January.

WBC NEWS! It’s like OLD TIMES (like, uhm, March).