Brazil to host 2017 World League Finals in Football Stadium

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, March 6, 2017 – The spotlight will be on Curitiba this July when the Brazilian city will hold the 2017 World League Finals at the 35,000-seat stadium – the Arena da Baixada – which hosted matches of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. 

This is the second time that a major FIVB tournament will be played in a football stadium following the immense success of the opening match of the 2014 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship in Poland, which was played at the National Stadium in Warsaw. The match was attended by 63,000 fans, a record for the volleyball World Championship, with the figure beating the previous record set as far back as 1952, when the volleyball championship final in Moscow was attended by 50,000 spectators.

The Arena da Baixada is home to football team Clube Atlético Paranaense. The 2017 FIVB Volleyball World League Finals will be held in Brazil for the sixth time after tournaments in Sao Palo (1993), Rio de Janeiro (1995, 2008, 2015) and Belo Horizonte (2002). 

The World League, the FIVB’s annual men’s tournament, has a history of being held in unique locations. In the 2014 and 2015 seasons of the World League, matches hosted by Italy were held at the Foro Italico in Rome. The venue hosted 11,000 fans during the 2014 competition, which saw Italy play Poland and then Brazil in the following year.

Announced at the Sports Events Council which met in Lausanne in February, the Group 1 Finals will take place from July 4 to 8 and will comprise the top six teams from the tournament including hosts Brazil. The Finals will be the culmination of six weeks of competition among 36 teams under the new format of the World League. 

The year’s World League will adopt the same format as in 2016, when a record 36 teams participated in the competition. The 36 teams have been split into three groups of 12 teams and will play the Preliminary Round in a pool format over three weeks, before the best teams gather for the Finals in each group. 

Brazil and Italy are the only two countries to have participated in all 27 previous editions of the FIVB Word League.

The tournament began with just eight countries, who took part in the inaugural competition in 1990. In 1991 the number of teams had risen to 10, while 12 nations competed from 1992-2000 and 2004-05. The field featured 16 teams from 2001-2003 and 2006-2012. 2013 saw 18 different countries compete, with that increasing to 28 in 2014 and 32 in 2015 before reaching the new high of 36 for 2016 and 2017. 

It was announced at the Sports Events Council that Curitiba’s volleyball and beach volleyball stars Gilberto ‘Giba’ Amauri de Godoy and Emanuel Rego will be spearheading social initiatives around the event.