Inaugural season 1965 No. of teams 12 | Founded 1965 CEO Ary Graça Continent International (FIVB) | |
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The FIVB Volleyball Men's World Cup is an international volleyball competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. Initially the tournament was played in the year following the Olympic Games, except for 1973 when no tournament was held, but since 1991 the World Cup has been awarded in the year preceding the Olympic Games. The current champion is United States, which won its second title at the 2015 tournament.
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The current format of the competition involves 12 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation Japan, competing in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation over a period of about two weeks. The World Cup acts as the first qualification event for the following year's Olympic Games with the top two teams qualifying.
The 13 World Cup tournaments have been won by six different national teams. Russia have won six times (four as Soviet Union). The other World Cup winners are Brazil and United States, with two titles each; and Cuba, Italy and Germany as (East Germany), with one title each.
Origins
The World Cup was created in 1965 with the purpose of partially filling the gap between the two most important volleyball tournaments, the Olympic Games and the World Championship, which take place in alternating 4-year cycles. The establishment of a third international competition would leave only one in every four years with no major events. The World Cup has a smaller entry than the World Championship, with at most 12 teams.
The World Cup was to be held in the year following the Olympic Games. The first two tournaments were for men's volleyball only; in 1973, a women's tournament was also introduced. Originally, each tournament had a different host, but in 1977 the competition was transferred to Japan on a permanent basis.
In the 1990s, the installment of annual international events such as the World League and the Grand Prix made the original motivations for the creation of the World Cup obsolete. Instead of letting a consolidated event disappear for lack of interest, the FIVB decided to change its format in 1991: it would be held in the year preceding, and not following, the Olympic Games; and it would be considered a first international Olympic qualification tournament, granting the winners a direct berth in the games.
This move saved the competition. The possibility of securing an early berth for the Olympic Games, thus avoiding extraneous and in some cases tight continental qualification procedures, became a consistent motivation for the national federations to participate in the World Cup. In 1995, the number of Olympic spots granted at the competition was increased to three, as it remained until 2011. In 2015 the number of spots was only two again.
Winners
Russia (considered as the inheritors of the records of the former Soviet Union), Brazil and United States are the only teams that managed to win the Men's World Cup more than once.
The soviets took the gold at the opening edition of the tournament, in 1965. Four years later, the winner was also a socialist nation, East Germany.
Scheduled for Uruguay, the 1973 edition was cancelled. In 1977, competition was resumed in Japan, and the Soviet Union came back for two wins in a row. In 1985, they were once again runners-up, but lost the decisive match to United Statesin five sets. In 1989, Cuba surprised the world and beat a rising Italy to take the gold.
With the competition now set as a qualifying event for the Olympic Games, Soviet Union, led by Dmitri Fomin won the title in 1991, at the brink of dissolution. The Italians, who hadn't participated in this edition, finally conquered their gold medal in 1995. Inheriting a large part of the former Soviet volleyball programme, Russia were the winners in 1999.
The following two editions, played in 2003 and 2007 respectively, were won by favorites Brazil. In 2011, Russia regained the title, while the 2015 edition was won by the United States for the second time. s
Competition formula
The World Cup is the most stable from all competition formulas employed by the FIVB. The following rules apply: