Basketball Northern Ireland is excited to welcome all clubs – both returning and brand new – for the 2025/2026 season! If you are a new group or club interested in joining our official BNI leagues and competitions, we want to hear from you.
How to Get Involved
To express your interest, please contact our Club Engagement Officer, Lauren, at lauren@basketballni.com. She will provide you with all the information you need, including the Expression of Interest form. For returning clubs the information will have been sent directly to your club Secretary via email on the 4th August 2025.
Important Deadline
All expressions of interest must be submitted by 31st August 2025. Unfortunately, late applications will not be considered, so we encourage all interested clubs to reach out as early as possible.
League Entry Details for 2025–2026
Before reaching out or completing the form, please take careful note of the following points:
- As per rule 5.3, the composition of the leagues will be decided by the League and Competitions Committee. Requests to join a particular league or division must be received by 31st August. When establishing the leagues at the start of the season the objective is to give all teams an approximately equal number of competitive games, and thus it is likely that not all requests will be accommodated. No late applications will be considered.
- All players must be registered with Basketball Ireland and BNI.
A player who does not have a valid BIPIN after registration with Basketball Ireland is ineligible to participate in any game under the authority of Basketball Northern Ireland. The penalty for playing an ineligible player will be a game forfeit. - Clubs and individuals registering with BNI do so on the clear understanding that they are agreeing to accept and abide by all the rules, regulations, policies, procedures and decisions laid down by the Board and those of Basketball Ireland.
- All clubs must meet BNI’s minimum requirements for qualified and registered members. You must have a sufficient number of registered players at that age group before asking to join a specific league. Each club must have at least:
- One qualified and registered coach
- One qualified and registered referee
- Teams geographically located outside the Board’s boundary are welcome to apply to participate in BNI leagues and competitions. Any such team wishing to participate must first complete a National Area Board Link Agreement form, giving the club permission to play in the (BNI Area) Board’s Competition. All applications from such teams must be accompanied with a payment of £100 per team, repayable after their first league game. Please contact our Club Engagement Officer, Lauren, at lauren@basketballni.com to make payment.
- It is proposed that there is no automatic promotion or relegation to or from different divisions, however league standings in the previous season is an obvious criteria to be considered by the League and Competitions Committee when establishing the leagues at the start of the season.
- In the junior leagues, a lower or development division will only take place if there are sufficient teams in the higher division. Our development leagues exist to allow the development of new and inexperienced players. If a club enters a single team at a specific age group and requests to be in a development division, they are required to provide detailed justification.
For all new clubs or groups looking to take part, we encourage you to contact Lauren at lauren@basketballni.com as early as possible to begin the process.
We are look forward to 2025/2026 for another exciting season for basketball in Northern Ireland!