FIVB Volleyball World Grand Champions Cup

History

The World Grand Champions Cup was created in 1993 after radical changes made on the biggest tournaments organised by the FIVB. The main goal was not to have a single year without a world FIVB competition. This is the only FIVB tournament that doesn't give FIVB points for the world ranking.

On 22 June 2023, Volleyball Calendar 2025–2028 approved by FIVB shown that World Championships to be played biannually in odd years. That meant the World Grand Champions Cup was discontinued and replaced by World Championships.

Winners

Brazil has been the most successful team with the men's team winning five and the women's team two titles.

Competition formula

The World Grand Champions Cup has always had the same formula since the first edition:

• The competition takes place in Japan.
• Six teams participate in each event: host nation, four continental champions and one wild card.
• Japan is always pre-qualified as the host nation.
• Four continental champions from continents whose teams reached the highest ranking at the preceding Olympic Games.
• The remaining team participates through a wild card granted by the FIVB.
• A round robin format is used for this competition.
• Final standings are calculated by usual volleyball criteria: until 2013 match points, numbers of matches won, sets ratio (the total number of sets won divided by the total number of sets lost), points ratio, direct confrontation; since 2017 the first criterion became the number of matches won, followed by match points, sets ratio etc.

Results summary

Men

Women

Medals summary

Men

Women

All-time team records

(Based on W=2 pts and D=1 pts)

Most valuable player by edition

Men

• 1993 – Gilson Bernardo
• 1997 – Nalbert Bitencourt
• 2001 – Ivan Miljković
• 2005 – André Nascimento
• 2009 – Robertlandy Simón
• 2013 – Dmitriy Muserskiy
• 2017 – Ricardo Lucarelli

Women

• 1993 – Regla Bell
• 1997 – Yevgeniya Artamonova
• 2001 – Yang Hao
• 2005 – Sheilla Castro
• 2009 – Simona Gioli
• 2013 – Fabiana Claudino
• 2017 – Zhu Ting

References

References

1. "Volleyball calendar 2025-2028 approved by the FIVB Board of Administration".