FIVB President Ary Graça along with Aleksandar Boricic (l), FIVB Men's World Championship Poland 2014 Control Committee President and Miroslav Przedpelski (r), President of Polish Volleyball Federation
Lodz, Poland, September 19, 2014 – FIVB President Dr. Ary S. Graça F° met with members of the media, organised by the Polish Volleyball Federation for the FIVB and the tournament partners – POLSAT, Wirtualna Polska, and the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on Thursday.
President Graça expressed his appreciation for the successful staging of the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship in Poland. He also emphasised on the strong support of the Polish volleyball supporters as the major contributors to the success of the event.
“As President of the FIVB, I have been at several World Championships, and for sure that this is by far the best edition,” said Dr. Graça. “The strongest success of this event is the public, then the organisation. The opening ceremony was spectacular, which can be compared to the opening ceremony of the Olympics. The Polish people should be really proud of this Championship.”
President Graça likewise gave special mention to various teams that have improved their game.
“The athletes also stood up to the level of the Championship,” President Graça said. “There were pleasant surprises on the performance of teams like Iran, France and Belgium.”
The President’s progressive mindset has brought many positive innovations to the sport of volleyball, such as the introduction of new technologies for the challenge system being used in Poland 2014. In his leadership, the volleyball community can expect more innovations to come in the future.
“To be able to compete with other disciplines, we have to constantly improve and modernise volleyball,” President Graça said. “Here in Poland, we introduced new technologies for the challenge system. Soon, we will have LEDs placed at the net, showing, for example a block or substitution, or any other game-related information.”
With the gaining popularity of the sport in more countries where football is the favourite sport, President Graça has been the best advocate of popularising the sport even further.
“I worked hard for 17 years to popularise volleyball in Brazil,” President Graça modestly said. “As a matter of fact volleyball is our first sport, because we can refer to football as a religion in my country. In Poland, people love volleyball and after this Championship, it may even become more popular than football.”
President Graça leads the movement in making the sport more and more important through modernisation. He admits that to be able to gain some changes in the sport, there is a lot of need for testing prior to perfecting these technologies.
“Volleyball is really special for some reasons,” President Graça said. “The World Championship is an event twice the size of any basketball championship. However, this is still not enough for the FIVB. We can further improve those numbers through volleyball modernisation. To be able to change something, you have to first see these mistakes in the process and be able to eliminate them to have a better system.”