Membership
B.J. Evans
Manager, Media Relations and Publications
Phone: 719-228-6800
E-Mail: bj.evans@usav.org
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Sept. 23, 2008) – The FIVB World League Council announced Tuesday at its annual meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland that the 2008 World League and Olympic champion U.S. Men’s Volleyball Team will be joined by China, Italy and Netherlands in Pool A of the 2009 World League.
It also announced that the United States, Serbia and China, were in the running to host the World League final round on July 22-26. The United States has not announced which cities might host World League pool play or final round matches. The intercontinental round (pool play) will begin the weekend of June 12 and be played for six consecutive weekends.
The FIVB World League Council chose Argentina and the Netherlands to replace Spain and Egypt in the 2009 edition of FIVB’s flagship annual men’s volleyball tournament after the latter two national teams were ruled to have the lowest attendance record among the 2008 participants.
A new record was set for World League attendance in 2008. A total of 665,000 spectators attended the 106 intercontinental and final round matches, beating the 2001 record of 649,000. There were 2,080 hours of television coverage worldwide (excluding news coverage), with 35 percent of it live match coverage. The gold-medal match between Team USA and Serbia was broadcast in more than 100 countries.
More than US$20 million prize money was distributed among the 16 competing teams.
The pool structure for the 2009 edition – the 20th anniversary of the World League – is as follows:
Pool A
USA
Italy
China
Netherlands
Pool B
Serbia
France
Korea
Argentina
Pool C
Russia
Bulgaria
Japan
Cuba
Pool D
Brazil
Poland
Finland
Venezuela