New beginnings of MEVZA League

From next week MEVZA league will start under the new competition system.

In April of this year, in Luxembourg, more precisely the headquarters of the European Volleyball Federation CEV, at the election assembly of MEVZA, the Central European Volleyball Federation, Valentina Bifflin – director of the Croatian Volleyball Federation, became the new president of this large and serious association that includes eight countries each with a huge volleyball rating (Slovenia, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary,
Israel, Cyprus and of course Croatia).

Along with Valentina Bifflin, the new sports director at MEVZA became Frane Žani?, the expert secretary of HOS, so it can truly be stated that Croatia has become an important factor in European volleyball.

The Central European Volleyball Zonal Association (MEVZA) was founded on October 19th 2002 in Schwechat, Austria, and the founding members were the national associations of Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland, which two years later decided to leave MEVZA – due to the great geographical distance. In 2016, Israel applied for MEVZA membership, and in 2018, Cyprus joined.

As MEVZA points out, the focus is certainly on the younger categories in indoor and beach volleyball as well as snow volleyball, which is a new challenge. Teams from all eight MEVZA countries participated in the last organized events, and the inclusion of some youth competitions in the qualification phase of the European Championship further emphasized their importance.

Next week, from 11-13 th October, the new season of the MEVZA volleyball league starts, both in women and men categories, and according to new principles, the president of the MEVZA Central European Federation, Valentina Bifflin, briefly says: “We have introduced a new competition concept, which will be played using a tournament system. In this way, we reduced the costs of participation and simplified travel for clubs, and gave them the possibility of better promotional use of the competition.”

In the men’s competition this season, 11 clubs are competing, three from Croatia (Mladost, Ribola Kaštela and Mursa Osijek), three from Slovenia (ACH Volley Ljubljana, Calcit Kamnik and Merkur Maribor), three from Austria (AICH Dob, Union Reiffeisen Waldviertel and VCA Amstetten), and two from Slovakia (Reiker UJS Komarno and TJ Spartak Myjava).

For women’s volleyball, seven teams are participating this season, from Croatia (Mladost and Marina Kaštela), from Slovenia (Calcit Kamnik and Nova KBM Branik Maribor ), from Austria Steelvolleys Asko Linz, Hungarian Swietelsky Bekescabai and Ukrainian Prometey.

Each of the clubs that play in the MEVZA league must be included in one of the competitions organized by CEV, from the Champions League to the CEV Cup to the Challenger Cup, which guarantees the quality of this regional competition.

The tournaments will be played during the week in which the clubs have no euro-obligations, which means leaving room for everyone to play national championship matches on the weekend.

The first three tournaments start already next week, from 11-13 th October (Tuesday-Thursday), in Zagreb, with the participation of local players from men’s team Mladost, as well as teams from Linz and Maribor.Hungarian women team Bekescaba, on the other hand, will participate with their local players and the teams of Prometey and Marina Kaštela, while on October 12 th , the Croatian team will also play match in Kamnik against the home team Calcit.

The semi-final matches after four rounds of the tournament will be played on March 7 th and 10 th 2023, and the super finals on March 18 th and 19 th .