The cooperation agreement was signed on Sunday by the ALBA manager Marco Baldi and Jörg Förster, the director of the University Sports Center at Freie Universität Berlin. ALBA BERLIN and Freie Universität established the first concrete forms of cooperation in recent months. They organized a first international basketball tournament that was attended by students from around the world. During the past week there were tryouts for Freie Universität's college team that as of now is being headed by the experienced ALBA coach Daniel Endres. The team will participate in national and international championships.

Jörg Förster (director of the University Sports Center at Freie Universität Berlin): "Through the agreement with ALBA BERLIN, the University Sports Center at Freie Universität Berlin is entering new territory in terms of university sports development. For the first time we have a written agreement delineating goals that will more closely link university sports with organized sports in Berlin. This should increase the achievements of university sports as well as the attractiveness of course offerings in sports at Freie Universität. Basketball is the world's most widely played team sport at colleges and universities and is an ideal platform for supporting Freie Universität's goals as an International Network University in terms of internationalizing the university and the integration of foreign students. We are looking forward to hosting exciting and attractive basketball events at Freie Universität, and with the help of ALBA BERLIN, we want to systematically further develop basketball in higher education."

Marco Baldi (manager of ALBA BERLIN): "Our goal is to work with partners in our city to create basketball opportunities at all the educational levels, from preschool through elementary and secondary schools up to the college level. The higher education landscape here has changed considerably, mainly due to continuing internationalization. Basketball can play an important role as a means of integration, especially in the context of our long-established Sino-German exchange program, which is based on work with students from both countries. We are very pleased to be cooperating with the internationally recognized Freie Universität Berlin in this sector."