Posts by Polish96

    I hope they won't rank 16 teams based on 3 group matches. Then the ranking is done based on set ratios which might end up very weird ranks. They should match group winners with runner-ups from pre-determined groups


    Only bright side is, we will probably see Haak playing in world championship. It was a pity that one of the best players in the world was missing second biggest event of this sport

    They seem to be following the format FIFA world Cup used do far, so it'll probably be A1 vs B2, B1vsA2 in the eightfinals, then the winners play in quarterfinals etc.

    It's official now - 32 teams will participate in the World Championship, starting with the next edition.


    In tne group stage there will be 8 pools with 4 teams each, then the 2 best teams will qualify directly to the play-offs (eightfinals, quarterfinals, semifinals, medal matches).


    This system is like a dream come true. Having play-offs start at the round of 16 is so MUCH better than having three or even two group phases.

    For 32 teams, by far the best system IMO is the one FIFA world Cup used do far. 8 groups of 4 teams, top 2 qualify, then eightfinals, quarterfinals, semis and medal matches. Simple, easy to understand and leaves little room for meddling.

    i was replying more in generał, but now you are the one manipulating my words lol. I never said anything about creating more and more tournaments. If anything, it's the people who defend this system that want even more unnecessary Continental tournaments instead of just a normal qualification system, like in any other sport, including pre-2018 volleyball.


    You say that weak teams can't afford to travel? Well, men's volleyball had almost 150 national teams participating in World Championship qualifiers in 2014 and 2018. That was the second biggest amount of teams in qualification after only football. How many of them can now afford to play one tournament, and then another,and then yet another in hopes of maaaaaybe getting enough rankings points to somehow overtake countries playing VNL on a regular basis?




    You say "they can earn points through Continental tournaments" except only a few pages earlier we were talking about how the AVC cup, for example, gives NO ranking points at all. The "it's not an annual competition" excuse is so bullshit too, like the FIVB couldn't simply, say, divide the ammount of points the teams earned in the previous edition by half the year there is no competition.


    Also, it's funny how you try to mock me with this "cambodian volleyball" argument. Nothing to say about how Belgium got screwed over in women's VNL to keep South Korea in, because of the stupid rules FIVB made?


    Speaking of VNL, how is it fair that it's so important for olympic qualification, despite being an purely commercial tournament restricted to only 16 teams? Most of which can't even be relegated, no matter how badly they Play?


    Let's not pretend like the FIVB isn't already actively catering to the strong and rich federations at the cost of smaller teams.

    Why would fivb suppress poor countries?🤦 I could understand if you say FIVB don't care about them but suppressing?:what:


    I really don't see what's the point of whining so much. Poor countries won't become powerhouses overnight although they have 10 tournaments with world rankings. They just need to invest money and get their shit together if they really want to be volleyball countries. If not, no problem. There's no sport other than maybe football which is popular in every single country. And this is okay

    I can definitely see how the countries in Asia or Africa are being surpressed by not being allowed to play Continental qualifiers to big tournaments, which, once again, was the only way they could earn ranking points and when, once again, Volleyball is Literally the ONLY team sport to introduced such rules


    The argument that "the calendar is too cramped and there is no time" losses all meaning, since - according to Polish sources - FIVB wants the World Championship to include 32 teams AND to be played every two years. Which means teams will likely have to play the World Championship, the Continental Championship (the FIVB wants to move those to december, which will of course f**k the club season even more) AND the VNL in a single year.


    Look at what the continental qualifying system was pre-2018. The qualifiers were played in stages. First the weakest teams faced against each other, then the best teams advanced to round 2 and faced higher seeded teams, then finally the winners of round 2 played against the best teams in round 3.


    All in all, the best teams had like, 4 or 5 extra matches to play in a 4 year cycle. You telling me that would be too much, but the new crazy rules made by FIVB will be OK?


    And yeah, I can also see clearly that there is a growing desire from Rich and powerful countries to turn volleyball into some sort of elitist sport (think rugby or ice hockey) where only a selected group of countries gets the privilege of playing at the biggest level. That's what they openly did with this "core teams" rule in the VNL, that's why they are selectively hand-picking the tournaments and matches that will count towards world ranking, and that's why they're slowly taking away any opportunities from the weaker teams to play competitively.


    This plan will so obviously fail because even in countries like Poland or Brazil volleyball is not even close to enjoying the kind of popularity Rugby gets in France or the UK, or Ice Hockey in Canada/Finland. When it comes to other strong volleyball countries, like Bułgaria or Slovenia... well.. uh... yeah.

    So we're having teams who can't even make 15 points in a set getting wild cards to play in World championship because of the Fivb ranking instead of having an actual qualification.


    Is it because Fivb's beloved federations would actually miss the tournament ?

    Said this before, will say it again: This season TRULY has been spectacular in highlighting how awful the changes FIVB recently made are. First Belgium, who won 4 matches gets relegated from women's VNL because of this stupid Core Teams rule they introduced in VNL, now this.


    Instead of having normal qualifiers, like in any other sports, from football to basketball to handball, we're stuck with this shitty ranking system that heavily favors rich and powerful (A.k.a FIVB's favorite) type of federations. Surely if China TRULY is one of the top 4 teams in Asia, they would have no problems taking one of the 4 spots usually Reserved for AVC through qualification, right? Like who does that? Can you imagine the outcry if FIFA announced teams who Play the next world Cup will be decided by ranking points?


    And don't even get me started on FIVB giving NEGATIVE 50 ranking points to the teams that "did not play a match" in a given year. Wtf kind of rule is that? Once again: who does that? And the best thing is, many teams, like say,the Philipines girls played a TON of matches this year, except they weren't deemed as "official games" by the FIVB. So what, will they get -50 points too? How on earth were they supposed to play an "official match" with such rules? That will singlehandedly destroy all chances they had, no matter how small, to play World Champs or the Olympics for the next few decades.


    Yeah, remember when they promised all matches will count when announcing this ranking system 🤡? Because it clearly looks like the only way to get ranking points is by playing VNL (commercial, invitational tournament) or tournaments like WCH, WC or Olympic Games, which already require a high enough world rank position to enter.


    The only way for smaller, non-european nations to earn points was by playing Continental olympic/ world Championship qualifiers, and FIVB got rid of them


    I pray to God normal qualifiers return for WCH 2026. I vastly prefer having 150 national teams or so complete for the available spots in a fair and just manner, like in 2014 or 2018 than this ranking based nonsense.

    There are rumors (which I would normally ignore, but they come from a trusted user that is WITH the Cuban NT rn) on one of the volleyball discords I follow that Volleyball World demanded that the Cubans lose this game or they will not be allowed to participate in the VNL2023...

    I don't understand, why aren't the World Rankings getting updated for teams that participate? Wasn't the intention of this new ranking system that every match should count? Even if FIVB doesn't consider this a major tournament, they should still be getting points for playing friendly matches. Otherwise, what's the point of these rankings if teams aren't getting points because FIVB doesn't like the competition? Remember that the world ranking will probably determine the teams that play 2026 World Championship again...

    Keep in mind that situation is very specific. FIVB had to find already verified host who can keep WCH at decent level of organization having only ~5 month to prepare it

    Yeah, but let's be clear: are we really supposed to believe that Serbia, Qatar or Turkey, who hosted LOTS of international basketball, Handball or even volleyball tournaments were not up to the task? Serbia just hosted the womens eurovolley past year. Turkey did so three years ago, and they also hosted the basketball world Championship, which require even bigger and better stadiums . And, most importantly, they applied by themselves, so clearly they wanted to host this world Championship. This is just FIVB's stupid "conservatism" again.


    And my problem isn't even with this specific case. My problem is that FIVB keeps awarding the major tournaments to the same group of 3-4 selected countries again, and again, and again, be it the World Championship, the Volleyball Nations League finals, the Club World championship. Whenever FIVB organizes something, you can be fairly sure that either Poland, Italy or Japan (and to a lesser extent Brazil) will be selected at least as a co-host.


    This just is not very good for the sport, and as the Eurovolley clearly tells us, there is a lot of potential for organizing big events in "smaller" countries, like France, Finland, Romania, or the Netherlands.

    Of course the FIVB is going to just host yet another tournament in Poland 😔 What an awful, shameful decision. The interest in hosting was huge. Australia, Qatar, Turkey, Serbia... But of course the FIVB chooses easy money over actually having to promote this event.


    It's ridiculous what the FIVB is doing, awarding almost all the tournaments to their 3-4 favorite countries. I mean, I'm not even exaggerating. Since 1998 the World Championships have been held in:


    1998 - Japan

    2002 - Argentina (the only exception on this list)

    2006 - Japan

    2010 - Italy

    2014 - Poland

    2018 - Italy

    2022 - Poland


    LITERALLY no other federation is doing this. If Basketball or eveb Handball, which is by far a smaller sport, can host World Championship tournaments in a wide variety of countries, why can't volleyball?


    Thank God at least CEV isn't afraid of giving the European Championships to smaller countries. It's clear that Ary Graca's FIVB would be fine with pretty much killing international volleyball in most of the world, as long as they'd get to leech money from the countries where it already is popular.


    The interest here in Poland is not really even that big this time around. I remember the excitement for WC 2014. Now even the major Sport news outlets don't great this as Important news. Most people just shrug and are like "oh, so we have yet another volleyball tournament. Cool."

    This qualifying through the world ranking is just :gone:

    It's even worse because of how horrendous the FIVB ranking is. For example, while the VNL playing teams got points with each match, the teams that played the European League got nothing. Also, the "strong" teams get points for World Cup, World Championship, Continental Championship, Continental Qualification, Olympic Games etc, while smaller nations can only get points by playing the Continental qualification. They aren't allowed to play VNL,,the continental equivalents do not grant ranking points, and real World Championship qualificaton tournaments just got scrapped by FIVB. It's a nightmare, but something in me tells me this was done on purpose.


    If this continues, the difference between top 15-20 teams and the other 180 nations will be horrifying in a few years.


    I don't mind it. It eliminates some pointless games and ensures (most) of the best teams will participate.


    It'll only really be impacted by those teams with inflated rankings... but hopefully that balances out.

    Just checked the rankings. Because of this system decent teams of Australia (rank 28), Finland (rank 33), Czech Republic (rank 46) Estonia (rank 47) or Venezuela (rank 58) may not even get the chance of playing the qualification tournament, not to mention the World Championship itself.