FIVB Volleyball World League

FIVB Volleyball World League
Current season, competition or edition:; 2016 FIVB Volleyball World League
Sport	Volleyball
Founded	1990
No. of teams	12 in Group 1; 12 in Group 2; 12 in Group 3
Continent	International (FIVB)
Most recent; champion(s)	Serbia (1st title)
Most titles	Brazil (9 titles)

The FIVB Volleyball World League is an international men's volleyball competition. Created in 1990, it is the longest and richest of all the international events organized by the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB). The tournament is annual. The women's version of the competition is called FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix. This event should not be confused with the other international volleyball competitions, the World Championship, the World Cup and the World Grand Champions Cup.

History

Origins

The World League was created in 1990 as part of the intensive marketing programme that would become a distinctive mark of the FIVB's activities near the end of the century. The idea was to promote the sport of volleyball by establishing an annual competition that would appeal to audiences all over the world.

At that point, international competitions involving top volleyball teams (e.g., the Olympic Games, the World Championship) took place only in 4-year cycles, and were usually confined to a host city or nation. By contrast, the World League was designed to be played on a one-year basis, with a system of rotating cities that allowed every team to host a number of matches in the preliminary round. Further restrictions on participation, such as mandatory local broadcasting, ensured massive TV & media coverage.

The FIVB's strategy eventually proved visionary: at the turn of the century, the World League was fully consolidated as a major international volleyball event. Generous rewards in cash - from 1990 to 2004, the total sum spent on prize money jumped from $1 million to $13 million - compensated in the eyes of the national federations for the competition's relative lack of tradition and prestige.

Following the success of the World League, the FIVB launched a sister project in 1993 for women's volleyball, the Grand Prix. It was very effective in East Asia, where this type of event has become tremendously popular, but its results in a worldwide scale still remain timid.

Winners

In the 1990s, the Italians dominated the World League, winning the first three tournaments in 1990, 1991 and 1992. Playing at home, Brazil, at the time the Olympic champions, managed to take the gold in 1993, but Italy regained the title in 1994 and 1995.

In 1996, foreshadowing what would happen just a couple of months later at the Atlanta Olympic Games, the Netherlands beat them in an extremely tight five-set match, before Italy once again won the gold in 1997. In 1998, the winners were Cuba, while in 1999 and 2000 Italy won again.

As can be seen, Italy were clearly the dominant team in the first decade of the World League: from 1990 to 2000, the World League was played 11 times, and Italy took gold eight times, while the remaining three titles were won by three different teams.

Italy's supremacy in the World League began to wane in 2001, when Brazil won a second gold medal, beating the Italians in three straight sets. With further titles each year from 2003 to 2007, and winning another titles in 2009 and 2010, the Brazilians were the preeminent at the start of the 21st century, being also World and Olympic Champions. The interruptions to Brazil's dominance came in 2002, when Russia took the title, and in 2008, with the United States winning gold and gaining positive momentum going into the Beijing Olympics.

Competition formula

The FIVB is constantly adapting the World League's competition formula to improve competitiveness and to make the games more attractive to the audience. Nevertheless, a few basic rules and restrictions will probably remain unchanged in the following years.

Teams who participate must provide local media coverage and live TV broadcasting.
The competition is divided in at least two phases: a preliminary round (usually called "Intercontinental Round"), with a system of rotating host cities; and one or more final rounds, with one or more host nations.
In the preliminary round, teams are organized in pools. Each team plays a total of four matches against all other teams in its pool, two at home, two as visitors. Each pair of matches is played over a weekend.
When all the matches of the preliminary round have been played, the top n teams in each pool qualify for the final round(s), and the remaining ones leave the competition. The value of n depends on the number of participating teams and the format that will be employed in the finals.
Host nation(s) automatically qualify for the final round(s).
The FIVB has tried various formats for the final round(s): Top Six, Top Four, Quarter-Semi-finals (Olympic format). For some years now (2004), the most commonly used is a mixed format: quarterfinalists are organized in two pools, and the top two teams in each pool play semifinals and finals according to the Olympic format.
In the preliminary round, a team is usually given the right to work with a list of nineteen players, from which the coach builds the fourteen-player line-up included two liberos (if the team include only one libero in the roster, their max roster number is limited to 12) that will be employed in a particular weekend. For the final round(s), only fourteen players included two liberos are allowed.

Hosts

List of hosts by number of final round championships hosted.

Times hosted	Host	Year(s)
6	Italy	1991, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2004, 2014
5	Brazil	1993, 1995, 2002, 2008, 2015
4	Poland	2001, 2007, 2011, 2016
3	Argentina	1999, 2010, 2013
2	Netherlands	1996, 2000
2	Russia	1997, 2006
2	Serbia	2005, 2009
1	Japan	1990
1	Spain	2003
1	Bulgaria	2012

Appearance

Brazil and Italy are the only teams that participated in all editions of the World League.

Template:Legend4 Template:Legend4 Template:Legend4 Template:Legend4

National team	Intercontinental Round			Final Round^{[N 1]}
National team	App.	First	Last	App.	First	Last
Brazil	28	1990	2017	24	1990	2016
Italy	28	1990	2017	22	1990	2016
Cuba	26	1991	2016	15	1991	2012
Russia^{[N 2]}	26	1990	2017	21	1990	2014
Japan	24	1990	2017	1	2008	2008
France	22	1990	2017	6	2001	2016
Netherlands	21	1990	2017	10	1990	2002
Bulgaria	20	1994	2017	10	1994	2013
Poland	20	1998	2017	9	2001	2016
Serbia^{[N 3]}	20	1997	2017	12	2000	2016
United States	20	1990	2017	10	1992	2016
Argentina	19	1996	2017	5	1999	2013
South Korea	19	1991	2017	1	1995	1995
China	18	1990	2017	1	1996	1996
Spain	15	1995	2017	3	1999	2003
Portugal	14	1999	2017	–	–	–
Finland	13	1993	2017	–	–	–
Germany	13	1992	2017	1	2012	2012
Greece	13	1993	2017	1	2003	2003
Canada	11	1991	2017	1	2013	2013
Venezuela	9	2001	2017	–	–	–
Egypt	7	2006	2017	–	–	–
Australia	5	1999	2017	1	2014	2014
Czech Republic	5	2003	2017	1	2003	2003
Iran	5	2013	2017	1	2014	2014
Belgium	4	2014	2017	–	–	–
Mexico	4	2014	2017	–	–	–
Puerto Rico	4	2011	2016	–	–	–
Slovakia	4	2014	2017	–	–	–
Tunisia	4	2014	2017	–	–	–
Turkey	4	2014	2017	–	–	–
Kazakhstan	3	2015	2017	–	–	–
Montenegro	3	2015	2017	–	–	–
Chinese Taipei	2	2016	2017	–	–	–
Qatar	2	2016	2017	–	–	–
Slovenia	2	2016	2017	–	–	–
Austria	1	2017	2017	–	–	–
Estonia	1	2017	2017	–	–	–

Table current through the 2017 edition.

Results

Year	Final host	Final			3rd place match			Teams IR / FR
Year	Final host	Champions	Score	Runners-up	3rd place	Score	4th place	Teams IR / FR
1990	Osaka	Italy	3–0	Netherlands	Brazil	3–1	Soviet Union	8 / 4
1991	Milan	Italy	3–0	Cuba	Soviet Union	3–1	Netherlands	10 / 4
1992	Genoa	Italy	3–1	Cuba	United States	3–1	Netherlands	12 / 4
1993	São Paulo	Brazil	3–0	Russia	Italy	3–0	Cuba	12 / 4
1994	Milan	Italy	3–0	Cuba	Brazil	3–2	Bulgaria	12 / 6
1995	Rio de Janeiro	Italy	3–1	Brazil	Cuba	3–2	Russia	12 / 6
1996	Rotterdam	Netherlands	3–2	Italy	Russia	3–2	Cuba	11 / 6
1997	Moscow	Italy	3–0	Cuba	Russia	3–0	Netherlands	12 / 6
1998	Milan	Cuba	Round-robin	Russia	Netherlands	Round-robin	Italy	12 / 4
1999	Mar del Plata	Italy	3–1	Cuba	Brazil	3–1	Russia	12 / 6
2000	Rotterdam	Italy	3–2	Russia	Brazil	3–0	Yugoslavia	12 / 6
2001	Katowice	Brazil	3–0	Italy	Russia	3–0	Yugoslavia	16 / 8
2002	Belo Horizonte	Russia	3–1	Brazil	Yugoslavia	3–1	Italy	16 / 8
2003	Madrid	Brazil	3–2	Serbia and Montenegro	Italy	3–1	Czech Republic	16 / 8
2004	Rome	Brazil	3–1	Italy	Serbia and Montenegro	3–0	Bulgaria	12 / 4
2005	Belgrade	Brazil	3–1	Serbia and Montenegro	Cuba	3–2	Poland	12 / 4
2006	Moscow	Brazil	3–2	France	Russia	3–0	Bulgaria	16 / 6
2007	Katowice	Brazil	3–1	Russia	United States	3–1	Poland	16 / 6
2008	Rio de Janeiro	United States	3–1	Serbia	Russia	3–1	Brazil	16 / 6
2009	Belgrade	Brazil	3–2	Serbia	Russia	3–0	Cuba	16 / 6
2010	Córdoba	Brazil	3–1	Russia	Serbia	3–2	Cuba	16 / 6
2011	Gdańsk	Russia	3–2	Brazil	Poland	3–0	Argentina	16 / 8
2012	Sofia	Poland	3–0	United States	Cuba	3–2	Bulgaria	16 / 6
2013	Mar del Plata	Russia	3–0	Brazil	Italy	3–2	Bulgaria	18 / 6
2014	Florence	United States	3–1	Brazil	Italy	3–0	Iran	28 / 6
2015	Rio de Janeiro	France	3–0	Serbia	United States	3–0	Poland	32 / 6
2016	Kraków	Serbia	3–0	Brazil	France	3–0	Italy	36 / 6
2017	TBA							36 / 6

Medal summary

Total		27	27	27	81
1	Brazil	9	6	4	19
2	Italy	8	3	4	15
3	Russia^{[N 4]}	3	5	7	15
4	United States	2	1	3	6
5	Cuba	1	5	3	9
5	Serbia^{[N 5]}	1	5	3	9
7	France	1	1	1	3
7	Netherlands	1	1	1	3
9	Poland	1	0	1	2

MVP by edition

Notes

^ Since Group system was introduced in 2014, statistics of only Group 1 Final Round are included, as this is the medal round.
^ Russia's total includes appearances as Soviet Union and CIS.
^ Serbia's total includes appearances as FR Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro.
^ FIVB considers Russia (Since 1993) as the inheritor of the records of Soviet Union (1948–1991) and CIS (1992).
^ FIVB considers Serbia (Since 2007) as the inheritor of the records of Yugoslavia (1948–1991), FR Yugoslavia (1992–2002) and Serbia and Montenegro (2003–2006).

References

External links

Fédération Internationale de Volleyball – official website
FIVB Volleyball World League – official website
Result Archive – Comprehensive results for all tournaments.

[1] Since Group system was introduced in 2014, statistics of only Group 1 Final Round are included, as this is the medal round.

[2] Russia's total includes appearances as Soviet Union and CIS.

[3] Serbia's total includes appearances as FR Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro.

[4] FIVB considers Russia (Since 1993) as the inheritor of the records of Soviet Union (1948–1991) and CIS (1992).

[5] FIVB considers Serbia (Since 2007) as the inheritor of the records of Yugoslavia (1948–1991), FR Yugoslavia (1992–2002) and Serbia and Montenegro (2003–2006).

[N 1]

[N 2]

[N 3]

[N 4]

[N 5]

v t e FIVB Volleyball World League
Successor: FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League (since 2018)
Seasons	Osaka 1990 Milan 1991 Genoa 1992 São Paulo 1993 Milan 1994 Rio de Janeiro 1995 Rotterdam 1996 Moscow 1997 Milan 1998 Mar del Plata 1999 Rotterdam 2000 Katowice 2001 Belo Horizonte 2002 Madrid 2003 Rome 2004 Belgrade 2005 Moscow 2006 Katowice 2007 Rio de Janeiro 2008 Belgrade 2009 Córdoba 2010 Gdańsk 2011 Sofia 2012 Mar del Plata 2013 Florence 2014 Rio de Janeiro 2015 Kraków 2016 Curitiba 2017
Qualification	1990–2009: not held 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014–2017: not held
Squads	1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
FIVB Volleyball World League statistics