2020 FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League

The 2020 FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League is the third edition of the FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League, an annual women's international volleyball tournament. 2020 version of VNL originally was scheduled to start earlier than the previous edition due to the 2020 Summer Olympics in July. The preliminary phase was scheduled to be held in five weeks between May 19 and June 21, 2020.

2020 Women's Nations League

Tournament details
Host nation	China
City	Nanjing (Final Round)
Dates	Cancelled
Teams	16 (from 4 confederations)
Official website

The final phase was scheduled to be held during July 1 to 5,[1] but on March 13, 2020 the FIVB decided to postpone the Nations League until after the 2020 Summer Olympics caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] After that on May 8 the FIVB cancelled the third edition of VNL to next year with retaining both Italy and China as the host nations for the Finals.[3]

Qualification

In the 2019 edition sixteen teams qualified for the competition. Twelve of them qualified as core teams which could not face relegation. Other four teams were selected as challenger teams which could be relegated from the tournament. Canada as winner of 2019 Challenger Cup earned the right to participate in this tournament replacing Bulgaria, the last placed challenger team after the 2019 edition.[1]

Qualification	Qualifier
Core teams	Brazil
	China
	Germany
	Italy
	Japan
	Netherlands
	Russia
	Serbia
	South Korea
	Thailand
	Turkey
	United States
Challenger teams	Belgium
	Canada
	Dominican Republic
	Poland

Format

Preliminary round

The 16 teams compete in a round-robin format with every core team hosting a pool at least once. The teams are divided into 4 pools of 4 teams at each week and compete five weeks long, for 120 matches. The top five teams after the preliminary round join the hosts of the final round to compete in the final round.[1] The relegation takes into consideration only the 4 challenger teams. The last ranked challenger team will be excluded from the 2020 Nations League. The winners of the Challenger Cup will qualify for the next edition as a challenger team.

Final round

The six qualified teams play in 2 pools of 3 teams in round-robin. The top 2 teams of each pool qualify for the semifinals. The pool winners play against the runners-up in this round. The semifinals winners advance to compete for the Nations League title. The losers face each other in the third place match.

Pools composition

The overview of pools was released on September 13, 2019.[1]

Preliminary round

Week 1
Pool 1 Brazil	Pool 2 Netherlands	Pool 3 Italy	Pool 4 TBA
Brazil  United States  Canada  Dominican Republic	Netherlands  Germany  Russia  Belgium	Italy  Serbia  Turkey  Poland	China  Japan  South Korea  Thailand
Week 2
Pool 5 Belgium	Pool 6 TBA	Pool 7 Brazil	Pool 8 Serbia
Belgium  South Korea  Poland  Dominican Republic	China  Germany  Turkey  Canada	Brazil  Italy  Japan  Russia	Serbia  Netherlands  Thailand  United States
Week 3
Pool 9 Canada	Pool 10 Turkey	Pool 11 TBA	Pool 12 Germany
Canada  Netherlands  Japan  Poland	Turkey  Thailand  Russia  Dominican Republic	China  Brazil  Serbia  Belgium	Germany  Italy  South Korea  United States
Week 4
Pool 13 United States	Pool 14 Russia	Pool 15 Poland	Pool 16 TBA
United States  Turkey  Japan  Belgium	Russia  South Korea  Serbia  Canada	Poland  Germany  Thailand  Brazil	China  Italy  Netherlands  Dominican Republic
Week 5
Pool 17 Thailand	Pool 18 South Korea	Pool 19 TBA	Pool 20 Japan
Thailand  Italy  Belgium  Canada	South Korea  Brazil  Netherlands  Turkey	China  Russia  United States  Poland	Japan  Germany  Serbia  Dominican Republic

Final round

Pool A	Pool B

Venues

Preliminary round

Pool 1	Pool 2	Pool 3	Pool 4
Cuiabá, Brazil	Apeldoorn, Netherlands	Montichiari, Italy	TBA
Ginásio Aecim Tocantins	Omnisport Apeldoorn	PalaGeorge	N/A
Capacity: 12,000	Capacity: 2,000	Capacity: 4,200	Capacity: N/A
		N/A	N/A
Pool 5	Pool 6	Pool 7	Pool 8
Brussels, Belgium	TBA	Brasília, Brazil	Niš, Serbia
Palais 12	N/A	Nilson Nelson Gymnasium	Čair Sports Center
Capacity: 15,000	Capacity: N/A	Capacity: 11,150	Capacity: 6,500
	N/A
Pool 9	Pool 10	Pool 11	Pool 12
Ottawa, Canada	Ankara,Turkey	TBA	Rostock, Germany
TD Place Arena	Başkent Volleyball Hall	N/A	Stadthalle Rostock
Capacity: 9,500	Capacity: 8,000	Capacity: N/A	Capacity: 6,000
		N/A
Pool 13	Pool 14	Pool 15	Pool 16
Wichita, United States	Ufa, Russia	TBC, Poland	TBA
Charles Koch Arena	Ufa Arena	N/A	N/A
Capacity: 10,506	Capacity: 8,250	Capacity: N/A	Capacity: N/A
		N/A	N/A
Pool 17	Pool 18	Pool 19	Pool 20
Phuket, Thailand	Seoul, South Korea	TBA	Toyama, Japan
Saphan Hin Sports Center	Jangchung Arena	N/A	Toyama City Gymnasium
Capacity: 4,000	Capacity: 4,507	Capacity: N/A	Capacity: 4,650
		N/A

See also

• 2020 FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League
• 2019 FIVB Volleyball Women's Challenger Cup

References

1. "FIVB ANNOUNCES HOST COUNTRIES FOR 2020 VNL". FIVB. 13 September 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
2. "FIVB announces changes to events calendar". FIVB. March 13, 2020. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
3. "FIVB ANNOUNCES CANCELLATION OF VNL 2020". FIVB. May 8, 2020. Retrieved May 27, 2020.

External links

• Fédération Internationale de Volleyball – official website
• FIVB Volleyball Nations League – official website