Qualifiers

The men’s and women’s FIVB Volleyball World Championships are staged every four years and are the most prestigious event in international volleyball.

The first FIVB Volleyball World Championships were organised in 1949 for men and 1952 for women and have remained the biggest event in volleyball, alongside the Olympic Games.

A record number of 279 teams participated in the qualification process for the 2014 FIVB Volleyball World Championships. This total, coming from 166 national federations across the five FIVB confederations, represents an increase of 90 teams from the previous best of 214 teams from 119 federations for the 2010 World Championships (compared with 102 in 2006, 72 in 2002 and 63 in 1998).

There were 127 teams that played in the Women’s World Championship qualification process for the 2014 edition. The world’s best 24 teams will compete in the FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship Italy 2014, which takes place from September 23 to October 12 2014.

Qualifying tournaments are held within the five FIVB Confederations (AVC, CAVB, CEV, CSV and NORCECA) to determine the 23 participants who will join Italy. The qualification process started in May 2012 and will run until June 2014.

As per the FIVB sports regulations, the number of spots awarded by the FIVB for each Confederation for the next World Championships is as follows:

Distribution of vacancies per Confederation
AVC	Asia	4
CAVB	Africa	2
CEV	Europe	Italy(Hosts) + 9
CSV	South America	2
NORCECA	North, Carribean and Central America	6

QUALIFICATION PROCESS

AVC
NFs registered	15
Nb. of tournaments	5
Period	Qualification Tournaments (4 spots) No 1st Round June 14-30, 2013 2nd Round September 4-October 1, 2013 3rd Round

CAVB
NFs registered	38
Nb. of tournaments	19
Period	Qualification Tournaments (2 spots) May-July 2013 No 1st Round October-November 2013 2nd Round January 2014 3rd Round

CEV
NFs registered	41 + Italy
Nb. of tournaments	13
Period	September 6-14, 2013 CEV European Champs (2 spots) Qualifications tournaments (7 spots) May 24-26, 2013 1st Round October 2-6, 2013 2nd Round January 3-5, 2014 3rd Round