2022 FIVB World Championship - POL/SLO

    WHAT!? Dear God. What the hell is wrong with FIVB!? Sorry, but that's just killing this sport. I hope the natonal federations will protest. I hope the IOC will do something... why the hell is volleyball getting so backwards lately? This is BY FAR the worst qualification system in any team sport I seen to date.


    Volleyball is more popular - and the level is better - then ever before. We had 150 National teams participating in the qualification to the 2018 World Championship. That was the 2nd most contested qualification tournament in this olympic cycle after only football. Why the hell does FIVB want to ruin this gigantic progress the sport has been making in the recent years?


    After completely destroying the World League, and implementing the awful Pay per View system for the match streams, now it's time to destroy the most important competition on the planet, I see.


    Just like they did with the WL< they're now turning the World Championship into a circus that noone will care about. Not only is the system completely unfair to teams from Asia, North America or Africa, they're taking basically any chance of qualifying for teams that aren't so high in the World Ranking and replacing a honest rivalization with a complete farce, created only to have the "proper" teams (a.k.a the ones that have money and fans) qualify.

    Yeah, sure, someone may say that " all the teams can advance in the World Ranking". The question is - how? How are the teams supposed to get more points in the ranking, when the FIVB is locking the only competition that can actually give them some points? Most countries don't care for European League or Asian Challenge Cup, and I don't think those competitions actually benefit them in world rankings. The VNL is already a joke, with most of the teams not even able to being relegated and an awful qualification system, the World Cup doesn't count, and the continental championship give like, 30 points for taking the 1st place?


    Honestly, this is just pathetic. After being taken over by Ary Graca FIVB has turned into this one big cash machine, that only cares about milking money from countries like Poland, italy or Brazil. The problem is that not only the rest of the world will no longer care about Volleyball, the potential in such countries will end too. Some people in Poland are alreadry becoming tired of how many tournaments we host lately - and we will probably host the male 2026 World Championship too.. It used to be an event, and now our federation already has problems to fill the stadiums.


    I wish Ary Graca would just retire, and take his "experts" with him.

    Quote from Polish96

    Some people in Poland are alreadry becoming tired of how many tournaments we host lately - and we will probably host the male 2026 World Championship too.. It used to be an event, and now our federation already has problems to fill the stadiums.

    This is a worriesome sign for the global development of this sport. Can you elaborate on the last part — the Polish Volleyball federation already has problems to fill the stadiums? How’s the attendance of NT matches in Poland in the last two years?

    I like this system of qualification because it will show real strength of each continent. Two guaranteed places for each federation is enough, and let the rest fight between each other. Thanks to this system of qualis WCH will be much more interesting. I never liked that NOCEA (especially in women’s tournament) has so many places while strong European teams (like Germany) has to stay at home. Now everyone needs to fight for his spot and this is fair.

    I like the idea that only 2 spots for each continental qualification to win the tickets. I think the main purpose of this is to ensure more strong teams can participate into World Championship meanwhile to ensure equality to each continent.


    By increasing the competition level of World Championship, Volleyball can draw more audience and publicity.


    I think the big problem here is someone thinks that the InterContinental stage is assigned by world ranking which is clearly not mentioned in the news. This idea could be wrong.


    I think the teams participate InterContinental Pool needed to be assigned accordingly to the results of Continental Qualification. Ensuring the qualification into InterContinetal Stage is related to continental qualification would make sure the will of individual federations joining the continental qualification not to be reduced.


    I take AVC for example. Last continental qualification was divided into 2 groups. The best 2 of each group got the tickets to World Championship. If using the new rule, Iran and Japan still got the tickets to Italy-Bulgaria World Championship.


    23px-Flag_of_Iran.svg.png Iran (8) 23px-Flag_of_Australia_%28converted%29.svg.png Australia (13)
    23px-Flag_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China.svg.png China (19) 23px-Flag_of_Japan.svg.png Japan (14)
    23px-Flag_of_South_Korea.svg.png South Korea (23) 23px-Flag_of_Chinese_Taipei_for_Olympic_games.svg.png Chinese Taipei (38)
    23px-Flag_of_Qatar.svg.png Qatar (31) 23px-Flag_of_Thailand.svg.png Thailand (47)
    Central Asia Zonal Round 1st 23px-Flag_of_New_Zealand.svg.png New Zealand (59)


    And the following 3-6 countries can get a chance to participate into InterContinental Pool to win tickets to World Championship again. I think more federations will agree to it, especially it only takes 2 wins (mostly) to win the tickets. So China/Australia/Chinese Taipei/Qatar can gain another chance to win World Championship tickets. There is no one-time offer to those countries any more. You get second chance to fight your ticket.


    It's fair and better.

    Quote from andrea

    This is a worriesome sign for the global development of this sport. Can you elaborate on the last part — the Polish Volleyball federation already has problems to fill the stadiums? How’s the attendance of NT matches in Poland in the last two years?

    It shows mostly in our +Liga and internationally on the Nations League. Couple of years ago, there was a sell-out crowd at nearly every match of our national team, and now there are often free seats left even when we play against Brazil or Russia. But, even the attendance at the 2017 European Championship wasn't that good, and, on average, lower than for example the attendance for 2016 Handball Euro - and out of those two discipline only volley had the privilege of being played at the National Stadium. Volley doesn't even get the media attention it used to - POLSAT (our primary volley broadcaster) first stopped showing divisions 2 and 3 of World League, some time later they decided not to show some important matches in the main group, and this year they even withdrew from broadcasting the Champions League. They got the rights for the Serie A, but some leaks claim they are going to give it up after this season. And I remember how massive attention it gained when we were selected to host the women's 2009 Euro and men's 2014 World Championship. Every main media paid attention to it. Now, there's not nearly as much hype for this year's women's euro or the 2022 World Championship. After announcing we'll host those tournament, most newspapers either didn't react or just wrote a brief note on that matter, that basically summed up to "We'll host another volleyball tournament."

    Quote from WZP

    Actually tickets in Poland are very expensive for men’s NT and I’m not surprised that halls were not full.

    Well, the cheapest tickets to watch the games of eurovolley 2017 costed about 7 Euro, and teh cheapest ticket for the final game was about 15 Euro, so I wouldn't say they were that expensive. The only time I remember when PZPS went crazy was the World League 2016 finals.

    Quote from Polish96

    Well, the cheapest tickets to watch the games of eurovolley 2017 costed about 7 Euro, and teh cheapest ticket for the final game was about 15 Euro, so I wouldn't say they were that expensive. The only time I remember when PZPS went crazy was the World League 2016 finals.

    Are these prices for Polish NT? Because I meant that.

    FIVB announced the hosts and pretty much outlined the qualification process for the 2022 WCH in Russia. Source: FIVB


    The hosts will be Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Ufa, and Novosibirsk. Two further host cities will be announced later. I guess that makes 10 gyms/cities in total, in case Moscow, for instance, hosts with only one.


    Now, here comes the more interesting part - the qualification. There are two aspects to notice:


    1. "The top two teams from each of the 2021 Continental Championships will secure qualification."
    2. "The final 12 places will then be decided leaving the top 24 teams as per World Ranking who have not yet qualified, to compete for the remaining places."

    I like part 1, as discussed already in March, and I am very disappointed with part 2. Continental championships will allegedly be given more weight, in case they keep those intentions. However, you have to make it to the final of your continental championship in 2021 if you want to qualify and if you are below position 35-36 in the World Rankings. There you go, you may now see why I disapprove this qualification system.


    Feel free to share your opinion, I already stated my disappointment in March.

    If we would take all of the countries from world ranking and split them to the groups - 25 countries in each group - and only 1st and 2nd place advance to the finals, results would be the same as with presented format. These teams don’t have any chances.

    Also it’s important to note that all of the teams will have chance to qualify through continental champs and if these countries are not able to qualify through continental, they are not worth to qualify at all. Exception is Europe in this case.

    Poor Ruben Acosta :( First Graca & co. ruin the World League, now this. :(

    I beg to differ with the qualifications format.

    Africa has been 2-3 teams. Asia gets 4 teams. South America gets 2-3 teams. That is 8-10 before NORCECA 3-5 and Europe remainder.


    Now Europe 4, Africa 2, Asia 2, South America 2 and NORCECA 2 before the World Pools.


    With World Pools as a second chance, a team probably only needs 2 wins to qualify. An upset gives a lower ranked team a chance.

    Am I among the few who are not okay with Europe, for example, getting more quotas than the rest of the world combined? I think the diversity of the previous allocations was quite alright. The 2014 and 2018 WCHs (with the exception of Germany missing in 2018, Europe could've gotten another slot back then) had the best teams across all continents.


    Also, yes, a team needs only 2 wins to qualify in the intercontinental pools. BUT! But they have to win against, what seems certain, teams from another continent(s), not against those from their own confederation. And some decent European teams, for instance, who might be in form to make a surprise (in theory) in these qualifiers won't be in the intercontinental qualifiers at all due to the World Rankings.


    Let me give you a simple overview. Let's assume the following 12 reach the 2021 continental finals.


    Russia France Egypt USA Brazil Iran
    Poland Serbia Tunisia Canada Argentina Japan


    Then, we have to take the World Rankings (I will use the current one) and apply the Serpentine system in order to get an exemplary overview of the intercontinental qualifiers.


    Italy* Belgium* Bulgaria* Netherlands* Australia* Slovenia*
    Korea Cameroon Mexico China Finland* Cuba
    Puerto Rico* Estonia* Germany* Slovakia* Dom. Republic Czech Republic*
    Chinese Taipei Spain Qatar Turkey Portugal Venezuela


    Again, it depends on how the World Rankings will look like in a few years but this is a very credible outcome. I see the following problems:


    1. Theoretically, and based on luck/momentum, Europe could end up with 14 slots (if we assume the teams marked with asterisk qualify). 14 out of 24 is a serious number and, apart from ice hockey, it may be unprecedented in modern-day sports at a WCH. It would be an overstatement to name it then a World Championship, more like an extended ECH plus a few guests. Sure, the distribution might look otherwise, yet when it is based on luck, draw, or rankings, you can be no longer certain of providing any kind of diversity. Let's assume it's just me who cares about diversity in 2019 (what were FIVB's plans of expansion in the first place, by the way) and move on.
    2. Say, Qatar do well and finish with the bronze medals at the 2021 ACH. Well, the continental events are no longer part of the World Rankings (as for now, at least), thus Qatar should feel lucky they might get invited for the intercontinental qualifiers in the end. However, as seen above, they have a much more difficult task fighting against two European teams than Korea and Chinese Taipei, two teams they had surpassed at the continental event. And one of those could end up qualifying instead because they got lucky with the distribution and their higher/lower World Rankings.
    3. Say, Ukraine, Croatia, Greece, or Kazakhstan (former WCH participants) have good generations and would've been capable of qualifying in a second or third round with the old system. However, based on the current situation, they HAVE TO reach the continental tournament's final as this will be their only chance of qualifying. So results definitely won't be the same for all.

    I know how my posts regarding the system may look like from another perspective and I, by no means, intend to bore you or ignore the other point of view. I totally understand that with the new system in charge, the WCH will surely have more European teams and eventually better quality, I just believe it's worth pointing out the flaws. Because there are flaws and I don't think this change is for the better! I will miss the old system with the confederations pre-distribution.

    It is fine to point out the flaws. I feel that there may be a little bit more of a swing to Europe. Asia may get screwed out of more spots.


    With 2022 going to 6 groups of 4 in the first round of the tournament, it may means more upsets in the first round, but if results carry into the second round (can’t tell at this point) it will be the big squads.

    Quote from YavorD

    The hosts will be Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Ufa, and Novosibirsk. Two further host cities will be announced later. I guess that makes 10 gyms/cities in total, in case Moscow, for instance, hosts with only one.

    Kemerovo and Yaroslavl are the last two hosts.

    With the WADA announcement today according to ESPN,

    Article

    “The consequences of WADA's ruling dictate that no Russian government representatives may participate in or attend any Olympic or other sports event organised by a major event organisation over the four-year period. As such, Russian president Vladimir Putin will not be able to attend the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, nor the 2022 World Cup -- should the ban affect the tournament.”

    “Further to this, Russia may not host any major event in the four-year period, and where the right to host such an event has already been awarded to Russia, that right must be withdrawn and re-assigned to another country as far as is legally or practically possible.”


    Are we looking at Poland/France/Serbia now as hosting in 2022? Maybe Brazil?

    I know this is not final as there can be an appeal, but would this possibly change format as qualification has not started.