No. of teams 16 (Finals) Number of teams 16 (Playoffs) | ||
Founded 1949 Women's European Volleyball Championship |
The Women's European Volleyball Championship is the official competition for senior women's national volleyball teams of Europe, organized by the European Volleyball Confederation (CEV). The initial gap between championships was variable, but since 1975 they have been awarded every two years. The current champion is Russia, which won its nineteenth title at the 2015 tournament in Netherlands.
The current format of the competition involves a qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding two years, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase, which is often called the European Championship Finals. 16 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation(s), compete in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about two weeks.
The 29 European Championship tournaments have been won by eight different national teams. Russia have won nineteen times (thirteen as Soviet Union). The other European Championship winners are Germany (as East Germany), Italy and Poland, with two titles each; and Bulgaria, Czech Republic as (Czechoslovakia), Netherlands and Serbia, with one title each.
The 2015 European Championship took place in Belgium and Netherlands. The next European Championship will be co-hosted by Azerbaijan and Georgia in 2017.