While the World Championships continues to be the mega attraction for the game, the FIVB has added events like the FIVB World League, the FIVB World Grand Prix, the FIVB World Cup and the FIVB Grand Champions Cup to its roster over the years, apart from eventually becoming an Olympic sport. The first volleyball World Championships for men was held in 1949 in Prague and in 1952 for women in Moscow.įIVB has since grown into becoming one of the biggest sporting organisations in the world with 222 affiliated bodies. Libaud assumed the role of FIVB's first president, a position he held on to till 1984. Representatives from 14 nations - Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Uruguay, the USA and Yugoslavia - met in Paris under the leadership of France’s Paul Libaud to set up the association that would govern volleyball at the international level. International governing body of volleyballĪpril 1947 saw the establishment of the Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB). Though there were a few national championships in different countries, none had a fixed set of rules as it varied from region to region.īut all this would change in 1947. However, all through this period, volleyball was largely restricted to only a few regions. The new tactic also meant the rules of volleyball were further refined and standardised, including the scoring system and the rule stipulating a maximum of three hits per team. It was to be called ‘bomba’ or ‘Filipino bomb’, taking a cue from the pace at which the ball landed in the opposition’s court. Rules for playing volleyball kept establishing over the years points per set changed from 21 to 15 points in 1917, in the following year the number of players per team was set at six and so on.Ī few years later, a new offensive way of playing the game - including what we now call setting and spiking - emerged in the Philippines. It was not until 1900 that a specially designed lighter and smaller ball was devised, which opened up a new array of tactical and technical possibilities for the sport. By 1913, the growth of the game in the continent was evident as that year saw it being included in the first Far-Eastern Games, organised in Manila. With YMCA societies playing prominent roles in regions like India, China, Europe, South America and Africa, volleyball would soon spread in these regions. The coming years saw rules for the game being drawn up as volleyball continued to bank on YMCA’s popularity to go global. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Development of volleyball Volleyball was officially selected to spell as a single word in 1952.Ī sport that traced its origin to basketball, baseball, tennis and handball - and now estimated to be played by over 800 million globally - had thus been established.Ī group of ladies playing a game of volleyball in 1900. Though it was incomplete with no fixed rules and a format to follow, the sport did enough to win over the delegation and soon became a part of YMCA’s wide network throughout the USA with a new name - volley ball (initially it was termed as two words). We therefore tried the basketball itself, which was too big and too heavy.”Ī new specially designed ball, which was lighter and smaller, was introduced in 1900. We needed a ball and among those we tried was a basketball bladder, but this was too light and too slow. "In search of an appropriate game, tennis occurred to me, but this required rackets, balls, a net and other equipment, so it was eliminated, but the idea of a net seemed a good one," Morgan explained. Morgan introduced the sport - called mintonette, the original name of volleyball - at the YMCA Physical Director's Conference a year later at Springfield College, Massachusetts. While this made up a game of volleyball, it was lent some competitive tone with the introduction of innings - later to be called sets - that was borrowed from baseball. The ball came from baske`tball, the net from tennis and the use of hands from handball. Morgan, who served as the physical director at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Holyoke, Massachusetts, looked at the sports around and picked the aspects that he thought suited his brief the best. Morgan, who invented the game of volleyball in 1895, came up with the idea so that people who found basketball’s ‘bumping’ or ‘jolting’ too strenuous could have an alternative physical activity to fall back on. For a sport that has been around for over a century, the origin of volleyball traces its roots to a rather humble beginning.
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