Dubai: The world governing body for volleyball is convinced the UAE is capable of hosting even an event of world championship’s stature, provided the country can attract an audience to attend live matches at the venues.
Mushtaque Mohammad, President, Control Committee for the ongoing FIVB Men’s U23 World Championship, admitted that the UAE Volleyball Association (UAE VA) had done a great job while hosting a world-class competition at Al Ahli and Al Nasr. Such an experience, according to the FIVB official, will come in handy if they bid for the FIVB World Volleyball Championship that is held once every four years.
The FIVB has already opened team registration for the FIVB Volleyball World Championships to be held in 2018. While the 2018 Women’s World Championships will be held in Japan, the venue for the men’s competition is yet to be decided with Russia and Bulgaria among the early bidders.
The opening round of qualifying matches for the competition are scheduled to commence in September next year, followed by the second and third rounds of the qualifiers in 2017, so that the qualifying process is completed at least a year before the actual competition. Hosts Poland won the men’s title and USA took the women’s crown beating China in the final at the 2014 World Cup.
Now with a successful top-notch competition under their belts, the UAE VA can still table a late bid to host the 2018 FIVB World Volleyball Championship. “The negotiations [to find the 2018 host city] have been at an advanced stage. But there is still time, as these are only negotiations. I am sure the UAE can come forward to host the competition even in 2022. While the standard to host the worlds would need similar top-class facilities that we have received here this week, we feel there is still some more work that needs to be done,” Mohammad told media here.
One of the drawbacks at the U23 competition was the lack of live audience for matches during the course of the week. “In the world of sport today, the live audiences are always important as the teams need to perform before them, and not to an empty hall. And while we realise that there is bigger impact of a competition through the electronic media, it would certainly benefit to have people watching an event,” he added.
“Perhaps, it is a matter of getting the timing right or even getting the clubs and schools involved to send in people to watch free matches. People in other parts of the world pay to come and watch such high-quality volleyball, but here we did not have crowds even though entry was free,” he observed.
