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Jack Majewski, the Richmond upon Thames College basketball academy head coach believes this weekend’s international tournament at Kingston College will go a long way to fill the basketball void for England.

The event will mark the official start of Richmond College becoming a part of the Get Set Network, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Education Programme. It is the third competition of its type Majewski has organised since the inaugural tournament in 2008. The Tournament was originally designed to provide an opportunity for European Basketball to showcase its young 'future stars'.  National U18 teams from France, Poland, Sweden and Croatia plus a Richmond College select team  will battle it out for this year’s Future Stars title.

Majewski admits it is no surprise to him that his Future Stars project accompanied by an international coaching conference  has taken off. He said, 'We have put a huge amount of effort into this over the last few years. We have a very high standard of basketball at Richmond upon Thames College and this team attracted some of the best young basketball players in London. It was Richmond upon Thames College that gave them the opportunity to play against some of the highest calibre junior national teams in Europe; an opportunity which is very rare in this country'.

'European basketball is equal if not higher than that in American and it is important English players have first hand contact with that in terms of their development.'

'There is a very big void to fill. English clubs don’t compete in Europe and English junior players don’t travel as much as they need to because of finances'.

Richmond College face France in  a group stage clash at Kingston Arena on Friday night, with the semi-finals and finals held on Saturday and Sunday respectively.