FIBA has announced changes to its calendar including new dates for the Olympic qualification tournament ©Getty Images

The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) has announced the revised dates for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic men's basketball qualification tournaments that were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pending International Olympic Committee (IOC) approval, the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments for men will be played within the period of June 22 and July 4 2021.

Four spots in the men's competition are still up for grabs with one winner from the four host tournaments making it to the finals.

These competitions will be held in Victoria in Canada, Split in Croatia, Kaunas in Lithuania and Belgrade in Serbia.

The women's qualifying has already been completed after holding their tournaments in early February.

Other men's tournaments to be rescheduled include the FIBA EuroBasket 2021 and the FIBA AmeriCup 2021 which will be played between September 1 and 18 2022.

To limit the workload of players, national teams in the FIBA Basketball World Cup Qualifiers will play the two games originally scheduled for September 2022 in August of the same year instead during the preparation for the FIBA EuroBasket and FIBA AmeriCup competitions.

FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said, "I'm very pleased that, in a very challenging period, FIBA has been able to conduct an internal consultation process so fast and confirm an updated calendar for our senior tournaments within almost two weeks from the IOC's announcement of the new dates for the Olympic Games.

"The outcome is a calendar of FIBA major events which remains very attractive for our fans, with a balanced distribution of top events, keeping always in mind the welfare and availability of players."

FIBA AfroBasket 2021 and the FIBA Asia Cup 2021, both set to start in August, have been pushed back one and two weeks respectively to avoid a calendar clash with the Tokyo Games.

The FIBA Women's AmeriCup 2021 has been rescheduled to just before the Games to June 20 to 27 and now has similar dates to FIBA Women's EuroBasket which starts three days earlier.

FIBA's men's competition, the U17 Basketball World Cup 2020 in Bulgaria has been rescheduled to the same dates as the women's equivalent, which will take place in neighbouring Romania from August 15 to 23.

A final decision on the youth World Cups will be made in mid-May depending on the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.