FIVB World Congress re-elects Ruben Acosta as President

Tokyo, 25th October 2006 – FIVB President Dr Ruben Acosta was re-elected for a further four-year term of office after delegates at the 30th FIVB World Congress, representing 196 of the FIVB’s 219 national federations, unanimously approved a vote by acclamation. Following the formal election ceremony, delegates heard progress reports on the future international Volleyball competitions covering the 2007-2010 quadrennial.

Dr Ruben Acosta Hernandez has been President of the International Volleyball Federation since 1984 and is only the second President of the organisation after its founding President, Frenchman Paul Libaud. Numerous delegates from across the world took the floor to praise Dr Ruben Acosta’s leadership of the organisation for the past 22 years and a motion to re-elect the President by acclamation was unanimously approved. FIVB President Dr Ruben Acosta started his next four-year term of office with a standing ovation from the floor. Closing the Congress, President Acosta spoke of the sense of unity he felt from the biggest-ever participation in an FIVB Congress. “We have openly shown that we are a democratic institution,” he said. “We are a strong federation and the best days of Volleyball still lie ahead.”

The final afternoon of the Congress saw progress reports from the organisers of forthcoming international Volleyball and Beach Volleyball events. The list started with the 2006 FIVB World Championships (men and women), commencing next Tuesday 31st October in Japan with the women’s tournament, with finals in Osaka on 16th November and from 17th November until 3rd December for the men’s tournament, with finals in the capital Tokyo. The major international FIVB events already secured over the next four years are:

The 2007 Men’s Junior World Championships, which will be held in Casablanca and Rabat, Morocco from 7th – 16th July 2007

The 2007 Women’s Junior World Championships, which will be held in Suphanburi, Thailand, from 19th-27th July 2007

The 2007 World League Final Round in Rome, Italy (July 2007)

The 2007 Beach Volleyball World Championships in Gstaad, Switzerland from 24th-29th July 2007.

The 2007 Youth World Championships for Boys and Girls, which will be held in Baja California, Mexico, from 3rd-12th August 2007 (Girls) and 15th-26th August (Boys)

The 2007 World Cups (men and women) in Japan, which will be the first qualifying event for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, from 2nd November – 16th November for the women’s event and 18th November – 2nd December for the men’s event. The matches will be played in 13 different Japanese cities: Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Hamamatsu, Hiroshima, Nagoya, Okayama, Osaka, Matsumoto, Saitama, Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo and Toyama.

Furthermore, spectacular venues in the heart of the cities were presented for both the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2012 London Olympic Games. In Beijing, Volleyball will be played at the Capitol Indoor Stadium and the Beijing Institute of Technology Gymnasium and Beach Volleyball at a purpose-built facility in the exclusive Chaoyang Park district. In London, Volleyball will be played at Earls Court and Beach Volleyball at Horseguards Parade in the heart of the city.

Among the 196 national federations represented at the 30th FIVB World Congress, six celebrated the 25th anniversary of their affiliation (Afghanistan, British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, Nepal, Nicaragua and Palestine) and 13 countries who were affiliated in 1955 celebrated 50 years of solidarity with the only world governing body of the sports of Volleyball and Beach Volleyball (Netherlands Antilles, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, People’s Republic of Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Sri Lanka and Syria).

Delegates unanimously approved Dubai, which was the sole candidate, as the host city for the 31st FIVB World Congress in 2008, which will be held in June 2008 before the start of the Beijing Olympic Games