GREAT BRITAIN – The European Baseball Confederation (CEB) shelved a possible suspension of Dutch heavyweight Corendon Kinheim this past weekend during a meeting of the Technical Committee. The reigning two-time Europan Champions faced sanctions after skipping the CEB Final Four tournament last September.

According to the Dutch baseball site, Grand Slam Stats & News, The CEB-ruling was inconclusive meaning a possible suspension of Corendon Kinheim could not be upheld. This latest development means that Corendon Kinheim will join current Dutch Champion L&D Amsterdam at next year’s European Cup tournament.

Both European Cup tournaments in 2009 will be played one week earlier than announced due to the requests of the Dutch and Italian federations. Initially, the tournaments were to be played April 6-11 but were moved up one week (March 30-April 4) to accomodate both the Netherlands and Italy which open their regular season on April 11.

One of the tournaments will be played in Nettuno, which won the European Champions Cup in September by winning the Final Four. The other tournament will be played in the southern part of Italy in either Messina (on Sicily) or in Calabria, which is the region south of Naples.

The alignments of the two groups will be decided during a meeting in Frankfurt, Germany on December 19.

The two finalists of each tournament will qualify for the Final Four which is scheduled to be played June 19-21 in Barcelona, Spain.

Source: Grand Slam Stats & News

Tags: Netherlands