Spread for months, rumours that the annual men’s and women’s international volleyball will have a revolutionary change in format have now heated up again and covered by several online media outlets. InstaVolley would like to share with our volleyball fans every talk of the town while we, as a responsible media organization, need to seriously declare that it is not an official news from FIVB. Viewer’s discretion is required.
Accordingly, in 2018 both tournaments World League (Men) and World Grand Prix (Women) will span 5 weeks of preliminary round plus 1 week for final round, the longest tournament schedule ever in history. In the preliminary round, every team will play 15 matches and will play against every single one of the participants after which the six best teams will advance to the Final Six, competing for the championship in a host city. Each country will host up to two weeks, but most countries will probably host not more than one.
In addition, the current Group Division system is said to be cancelled, meaning there will be one group only. The group will encompass a total of 16 national teams. Of these, 12 of them are permanent constituencies also aka “classified” teams; the remaining 4 team are “challengers”, which can be changed over time. The rumoured classified teams and challengers are as follows:
World League
Classified: Brazil, Italy, USA, Russia, Serbia, France, Argentina, Poland, Iran, Germany, Japan, and China.
Challengers: Canada, Bulgaria, Australia, and Korea
World Grand Prix (may be renamed)
Classified: Brazil, China, Serbia, USA, Russia, The Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Japan, Korea and Thailand
Challengers: Poland, Belgium, Dominican Republic and Argentina
Criteria to be classified teams include volleyball history and development, history of participation of the tournament, recent results, position in the rankings and capability to host matches.
