The Confederation of European Baseball (CEB) has announced a historic agreement with PONY Baseball and Softball – an international youth baseball/softball organisation that operates domestic youth club leagues around the world – to further promote and grow baseball in Europe, specifically targeting the youth demographic.
While PONY has had a presence organising club competitions in Europe for over the past fifteen years, CEB has strengthened ties with PONY in order to accelerate baseball’s grassroots initiatives and spread in Europe, and to encourage more young people to take up sport and take up baseball and softball.
“PONY has a great interest in creating more opportunities for more clubs, teams and leagues in the nearly forty countries that are members of CEB,” stated Abraham Key, President of PONY Baseball and Softball.
CEB currently has four of its countries within the Top 20 of the IBAF World Rankings – No. 6 Netherlands, No. 11 Italy, No. 17 Spain and No. 19 Germany – and the presence of European countries in world championships is sustaining its trend of increasing participation on the world stage. Four European countries, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Lithuania have qualified for the 2nd U-15 Baseball World Cup in Baja California Sur this August.
PONY organises annual European club championships in the U-14 and U-16 youth categories, which are scheduled to be held at the Prague Eagles complex in Prague from 16-19 April. Sixteen youth teams from more than twelve European countries, with approximately 200 athletes, have qualified in each age category. European club championship winners will qualify for the PONY’s U-16 and U-14 World Series events this summer.
