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FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship Preview
2027 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship
The 2027 volleyball tournament will take place in Poland after they were awarded the tournament after a competitive bidding process. The 2029 hosts have also been announced, with Qatar hosting.
Further details of the 2027 tournament are yet to be announced, with the hosting cities to be decided in due course.
Host nations have won a total of four tournaments, and Poland was the last in 2014, but before that, you have to go back to 1966 to find the last winning host, which was Czechoslovakia.
History of the FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship
Founded in 1949, the FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship did originally since 1962 take place every four years; however, since 2025, it has now changed to every two years, in which a total of thirty-two countries compete for the gold medal.
Like a lot of these tournaments, the early years were dominated by the Soviet Union, which made seven of the first ten tournament finals and, in doing so, went on to win a total of six gold medals.
There have been plenty of back-to-back champions in this tournament. The Soviet Union defended their titles in 1952, 1962 & 1982, Italy defended its titles in 1994, 1998 & 2025, Brazil defended its titles in 2006 & 2010, and Poland defended their title in 2018.
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FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship Past Winners
As you can see below, plenty of countries successfully retain their titles. Italy won their first title in 1990, and they then returned in both 1994 & 1998 to retain their title for three consecutive tournaments. Brazil repeated that feat in 2002, 2006 & 2010, and then Poland won back-to-back titles in 2014 & 2018.
Italy returned to success in 2022 and then backed that up in 2025, moving them to within one of the record wins (6), and they have now won 50% of the last ten tournaments.
| Season | Champions (No. of Titles) | Score | Runners-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Italy (5th) | 3-1 | Bulgaria |
| 2022 | Italy (4th) | 3-1 | Poland |
| 2018 | Poland (3rd) | 3–0 | Brazil |
| 2014 | Poland (2nd) | 3–1 | Brazil |
| 2010 | Brazil (3rd) | 3–0 | Cuba |
| 2006 | Brazil (2nd) | 3–0 | Poland |
| 2002 | Brazil (1st) | 3–2 | Russia |
| 1998 | Italy (3rd) | 3–0 | FR Yugoslavia |
| 1994 | Italy (2nd) | 3–1 | Netherlands |
| 1990 | Italy (1st) | 3–1 | Cuba |
FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship Betting Tips
We have a Best Volleyball Tipsters page, which you can visit during the tournament to get FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship tips.
On this page, only the best volleyball tipsters are displayed; by that, we mean only tipsters who have shown a profit over the past year for their volleyball predictions and those who currently have open tips.
Alternatively, head over to the Volleyball Predictions page for not only predictions on the FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship but also tips throughout the year on other tournaments.
Favourite Statistics
The favourite's success rate was consistently in the 70% range over the three tournaments in 2010, 2014 and 2018, with the last two coming in at 79.61% and 77.66%. Then in 2022, there was a jump in winning favourites with an over 82% success rate before dropping back down to 70% in 2025.
There have been a lot of short favourites, from the 391 matches over the last five tournaments, there has been a total of 145 favourites priced up 1.10 or shorter, with odds of 1.10 converted to a chance percentage is 90.90% so given that 138 of those have been successful, that gives them a success rate of 95.17% which is good.
When you start to get to odds of 1.41 or bigger, then the favourites become less reliable, with those only having a 48.96% success rate (47-96).
- 2010: 56-78 (71.79%)
- 2014: 82-103 (79.61%)
- 2018: 73-94 (77.66%)
- 2022: 43-52 (82.69%)
- 2025: 45-64 (70.31%)
- Overall: 299-391 (76.47%)
Set Score Statistics
A total of 186 games of the 391 played over the last five tournaments have ended in either a 3-0 or 0-3 scoreline, which is a massive 47.57% of the games, that is almost half of all the games played!
Throw in that another 129 of the games (32.99%) ended in a 3-1/1-3 scorelines, it would seem to indicate that a lot of the games are not too competitive; in fact, the average number of sets in a game works out at 3.72.
Only 76 games, that is 19.44% of the games at the last five tournaments, needed all five sets to decide a winner.
- 3-0: 113 Games (28.90%)
- 3-1: 75 Games (19.18%)
- 0-3: 73 Games (18.67%)
- 1-3: 54 Games (13.81%)
- 3-2: 42 Games (10.74%)
- 2-3: 34 Games (8.70%)
FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship Medal Table
The early years were dominated by the Soviet Union, which saw them top the medal table with a total of eleven medals, six of those being gold medals. Italy's win in 2025, when they retained their title, has now moved them on to five golds and now only one behind the Soviet Union's record haul.
In total, there have only been seven countries to win the gold medal: those two already mentioned, Brazil and Poland with three wins apiece, Czechoslovakia with two and then one each for both East Germany and the USA.
| Rank | Club | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Soviet Union | 6 | 2 | 3 | 11 |
| 2nd | Italy | 5 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| 3rd | Brazil | 3 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
| 3rd | Poland | 3 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| 5th | Czechoslovakia | 2 | 4 | 0 | 6 |
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Our volleyball content, including this FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship Preview, is meticulously crafted by Andy, who maintains the content on this page, keeping you up-to-date with the latest information.
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