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LAUSANNE, Switzerland, March 12, 2021 - The FIVB
has today announced that the city of Rimini,
Emilia-Romagna, Italy will host the women’s and
men’s Volleyball Nations League (VNL) 2021 in a
secure bubble to ensure athletes are able to
compete safely and bring live volleyball action
to millions of fans worldwide.
The secure bubble concept was approved by the
VNL Council in January, and will see the world’s
top women’s and men’s volleyball nations be
accommodated and compete in a single secure
bubble for the duration of the event.
Teams will compete in a round robin format with
a total of 15 matches per team between 25 May
and 20 June for the women’s event and 28 May to
23 June for the men’s event. The top four teams
per gender, rather than the usual six, will then
proceed to the VNL Finals to compete for the
ultimate title of VNL champions.
The women’s semi-finals and finals will be held
on 24 and 25 June respectively, and the men’s
matches will be played on 26 and 27 June. Over
the course of 31/32 days, 124 top-level
volleyball matches per gender will be played
within the secure bubble, with the health and
wellbeing of all involved the top priority.
More than 6 countries expressed an interest in
hosting the flagship VNL event in an open
bidding process. All applications received were
then evaluated with the facilities, event
hosting experience and security capacity to host
a safe and secure event as the primary
considerations.
Following this evaluation, it was decided that
Italy and RCS Sports and Events, a sports and
media company with over 30 years’ experience in
managing world-class sporting events such as the
Giro d'Italia cycling race, Milan Marathon and
Abu Dhabi Marathon, will organise the women’s
and men’s VNL 2021 in a secure bubble.
The latest COVID-19 countermeasures will be
implemented to significantly reduce the risk of
virus transmission, including frequent testing,
strict health and hygiene measures and an array
of risk mitigation protocols. |
