Dr. Ary S. Graça
“We have a great opportunity to turn volleyball into one of the world’s most popular sports but we have to be innovative and we have to be courageous to think outside the box,” Dr. Graça told the members. “I appreciate all your hard work in this meeting and I urge all of you to take back home what we have discussed over the last two days and spread the word of what the FIVB is now trying to achieve. All parties – players, organisers, confederations, federations and stakeholders – play an important part in this modernisation of our organisation and our sport.”
Key decisions saw the approval for the Challenge System to be used during the FIVB Volleyball World League and the FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix Finals, with the option of federations to be able to use the system during the Preliminary Round. While a global plan to develop female referees through organising specialised International Referee Courses for female referees every two years in the development centre of each confederation was also accepted.
Meanwhile, the Board unanimously endorsed the new beach volleyball selection criteria put in place for the 2013 season, which sees the vacancies for tournaments belonging to the national federations (same as the Continental Cup process) while the ranking points are allocated to each player for ranking, entry and seeding purposes. This new criteria brings the selection policy of beach volleyball in line with volleyball.
The first event of the 2013 season is the Fuzhou Open in China from April 23 to 28 with the confirmed Team Entry List expected to be unveiled early next week.
Other major results saw the FIVB General Regulations, Disciplinary Regulations, FIVB Tribunal Regulations and a new set of Sports Regulations all approved
The meeting ended with FIVB Honorary Life President Mr Jizhong Wei and Honorary Executive Vice President and Board of Administration member Mr Theofanis Tsiokris both receiving special recognition awards for their services to volleyball and the FIVB.
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