FIVB Men's Volleyball World Cup

The current champion is Italy, who won their fifth title at the 2025 tournament, defeating Bulgaria in the final.

The current format of the competition involves a qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase, which is often called the World Championship Finals. The former format was 24 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation(s), compete in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month.

The 21 World Championship tournaments have been won by seven different national teams: the Soviet Union six times; Italy five times; Brazil and Poland three times each; Czechoslovakia twice; and East Germany and the United States, once each.

History

The history of the World Championship goes back to the beginnings of volleyball as a professional, high-level sport. One of the first concrete measures taken by the FIVB after its foundation in 1947 was the establishment of an international competition involving teams from more than one continent. In 1949, the first edition was played in Prague, Czechoslovakia. At that point, the tournament was still restricted to Europe.

Three years later, the event was expanded to include nations from Asia, and began to be held in 4-year cycles. By the following edition, there were also teams from South, Central and North America.

Since volleyball was to be added to the Olympic Program in 1964, the 4-cycles were advanced 2 years after the fourth edition (1960), so that the World Championship may alternate with the Summer Olympic Games. As of 1970, teams from Africa also took part in the competition, and the original goal of having members from all five continental confederations in the games was achieved.

The number of teams involved in the games has changed significantly over the years. Following volleyball's increase in popularity, they rose steadily to over 20 in the 1970s and part of the 1980s, were then cut short to 16 in the 1990s, and finally set up to 24 after 2002. Today, the World Championship is the most comprehensive of all events organized by the FIVB, and arguably the most important, alongside the Olympic Games.

Until 1974, the host nation of the tournament organized both the men's and the women's events, with the single exception of the 1966/1967 games, which took place in different years. Since 1978, this practice has been only occasionally observed, for instance, in 1998 and in the 2006 edition, which was held, as the former was, in Japan.

On 15 October 2022, FIVB announced the expansion of the World Championships and the changes to the competition formula. A total of 32 teams are to compete for future editions of the tournament.

On 22 June 2023, the Volleyball Calendar 2025–2028 approved by FIVB showed that World Championships are to be played biannually in odd years. The first reformed World Championships will be held in 2025 with 32 teams in the new formula.

On 5 March 2026, the tournament was officially renamed the FIVB Volleyball World Cup starting with the 2027 edition. According to the FIVB, this change was intended to align volleyball with the terminology of other major global sporting events and to enhance the tournament's brand recognition.

Winners

The history of the World Championship clearly demonstrates how volleyball was originally dominated by European nations.

The first two editions were won by the Soviet Union. In 1956, twice runner-up Czechoslovakia took the gold. There followed two more consecutive wins for the Soviet Union, in both cases over Czechoslovakia. The Czechs won a gold medal in the 1966 edition.

In 1970, East Germany prevailed over Bulgaria for their first and only title. In 1974, the Soviet Union threatened to take the lead once more, but ended up being defeated by Poland at the final. Nevertheless, they would confirm their leadership by winning, for the third time, two editions in a row.

1986 saw the first relevant confrontation between United States, the rising major force of the decade, and the traditional leader Soviet Union after the Olympic boycotts of 1980 and 1984. As would be the case two years later at the Seoul Olympic Games, the issue was settled in favour of the Americans led by Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons. Italy completely dominated the competition in the 1990s, winning all the editions that took place in this decade (1990, 1994, 1998), led by such players as Lorenzo Bernardi and Andrea Giani.

In the 2000s, Brazil became the leading force in the sport, also winning three consecutive editions (2002, 2006 and 2010), the first of which in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the same stage where the Brazilians had been runners-up in 1982. In 2014, hosts Poland defeated Brazil in four sets at the final, achieving their second gold medal and preventing what would have been a historic fourth title in a row. In 2018, Poland won a second consecutive title, again defeating Brazil in the final. In 2022, Poland, playing at home, missed the opportunity to win three consecutive editions by losing in the final to Italy, who won their fourth World title. In 2025, Italy repeated their success by beating Bulgaria in the final match.

As of 2025, 21 editions of the men's Volleyball World Championship have been played: 17 went to European teams, and four to American teams (three times to Brazil and once to the United States).