FIVB Volleyball World League

FIVB Volleyball World League

Sport	Volleyball
Founded	1990
Ceased	2017
Replaced by	Nations League Challenger Cup
No. of teams	12 in Group 1 12 in Group 2 12 in Group 3
Continent	International (FIVB)
Last champion(s)	France (2nd title)
Most titles	Brazil (9 titles)

The FIVB Volleyball World League was an annual international men's volleyball competition. Created in 1990, it was the longest and richest of all the international events organized by the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB). The women's version of the competition was 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.

From 2018, the World League and World Grand Prix was replaced by the men's and women's Nations League and men's and women's Challenger Cup.^[1][2]

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.

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.

List of hosts by number of final round championships hosted.

Times hosted	Hosts	Year(s)
6	Italy	1991, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2004, 2014
6	Brazil	1993, 1995, 2002, 2008, 2015, 2017
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

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

Team	Intercontinental Round			Final Round[A]
	App.	First	Last	App.	First	Last
Brazil	28	1990	2017	25	1990	2017
Italy	28	1990	2017	22	1990	2016
Russia[B]	26	1990	2017	22	1990	2017
Cuba	26	1991	2016	15	1991	2012
Japan	24	1990	2017	1	2008	2008
France	22	1990	2017	7	2001	2017
Netherlands	21	1990	2017	10	1990	2002
Serbia[C]	20	1997	2017	13	2000	2017
United States	20	1990	2017	11	1992	2017
Bulgaria	20	1994	2017	10	1994	2013
Poland	20	1998	2017	9	2001	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	–	–	–
Greece	13	1993	2017	1	2003	2003
Germany	13	1992	2017	1	2012	2012
Finland	13	1993	2017	–	–	–
Canada	11	1991	2017	2	2013	2017
Venezuela	9	2001	2017	–	–	–
Egypt	7	2006	2017	–	–	–
Czech Republic	5	2003	2017	1	2003	2003
Australia	5	1999	2017	1	2014	2014
Iran	5	2013	2017	1	2014	2014
Puerto Rico	4	2011	2016	–	–	–
Belgium	4	2014	2017	–	–	–
Mexico	4	2014	2017	–	–	–
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	–	–	–

Year	Final host		Final				3rd place match				Teams IR / FR
			Champions	Score	Runners-up		3rd place	Score	4th place
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 / Recife		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–Sopot		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	Curitiba		France	3–2	Brazil		Canada	3–1	United States		36 / 6

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Brazil	9	7	4	20
2	Italy	8	3	4	15
3	Russia	3	5	6	14
4	United States	2	1	3	6
5	France	2	1	1	4
6	Cuba	1	5	3	9
7	Serbia	1	3	1	5
8	Netherlands	1	1	1	3
9	Poland	1	0	1	2
10	FR Yugoslavia /  Serbia and Montenegro	0	2	2	4
11	Canada	0	0	1	1
	Soviet Union	0	0	1	1
Totals (12 entries)		28	28	28	84

• 
  FIVB World League Final Match Brazil vs Serbia and Montenegro, July 10, 2005
• 
  Cup Ceremony FIVB World League 2011 (Russia Champions)
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  Poland fans at FIVB World League 2013
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  Spike by Giba
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  Brazil Champion FIVB World League 2009
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  Dive by Bartosz Kurek
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  Iran and United States teams in FIVB World League 2015
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  Poland at FIVB World League Final 2011
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  Italian Player in FIVB World League 2012
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  Spike style by Bulgarian Player

• Fédération Internationale de Volleyball – official website
• FIVB Volleyball World League – official website
• Results Archive^{[permanent dead link‍]} – comprehensive results for all tournaments