2021 Men

Update on EuroVolley 2021 qualifiers

News

Article Mon, Dec 7 2020

In response to the coronavirus crisis and the many restrictions in place in many countries for teams to travel and organisers to host and deliver sporting events, the CEV Board of Administration has decided to postpone the completion of the CEV EuroVolley 2021 qualifiers to May 16, 2021 at the latest.

The CEV Volleyball Department has hosted a number of videoconference calls with all National Federations involved in the EuroVolley qualifiers, trying to a find a consensus on when to deliver the qualifiers, keeping the safety and well-being of all stakeholders as the top priority.

After such an extensive negotiation process, the CEV and the relevant National Federations came to the conclusion to postpone to May 2021 the following qualifiers:
-    Men: Pools A, E, F and G
-    Women: Pools A, B, C, D, E, and F

Two men’s EuroVolley qualifiers will be taking place in January, with Israel hosting two consecutive round-robin tournaments in Pool B, featuring the national teams of Austria and Bulgaria next to the home side. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Volleyball Denmark confirmed to the CEV earlier this week the withdrawal of their men’s national team from CEV EuroVolley 2021. Therefore, with Denmark originally due to host one of two tournaments in Pool C, the remaining National Federations – North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey – have agreed that two consecutive round-robin tournaments will be taking place in Skopje (MKD) from January 11-16, 2021.

The only EuroVolley Men qualifier completed this far took place this past August / September in Cyprus where Latvia secured their first EuroVolley appearance since 1995. Apart from the four host countries and the top eight teams from the 2019 edition, all of the winners from the EuroVolley qualifiers and the top five runners-up with the best result across all pools will secure a spot to compete at the event due to take place in the late summer of 2021 in Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia and Finland.

As for EuroVolley Women, the CEV and the relevant National Federations have concluded to postpone all qualifiers to May 2021. Apart from the four host countries and the top eight from the 2019 edition, all of the EuroVolley qualifier winners and runners-up will claim a spot to contest the continental showpiece tournament co-hosted by Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania in 2021.

The CEV will continue to liaise with all parties and announce the dates of the EuroVolley qualifiers postponed to May 2021 in due course, while monitoring any further developments of the global health crisis and of the resulting restrictions.

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