HISTORY
The Middle European Volleyball Zonal Association (MEVZA) was founded October 19, 2002 in Schwechat (Austria). Founding members were the national federations of Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Switzerland decided to leave MEVZA in February 2004 for geographical reasons (too far distances). In 2016, Israel requested admission and most recently, in 2018 Cyprus joined as well. Although these two countries do not conform to the geographical proximity originally established by the CEV, they could not participate in the preliminary decisions for some of the age-group European Championships without belonging to a zonal association. MEVZA therefore currently consists of 8 countries.
Cooperation in Middle Europe has a very long tradition. In addition to national team competitions of all age groups, it was in particular joint club competitions that had a decade-long history. From the “Donaupokal” of the seventies that developed into the “Interleague” in the nineties, which then seamlessly merged into the MEVZA League.
Another commonality of the founding member federations of the MEVZA was also great commitment in the last decade of the Spring Cup, which was originally introduced in the sixties as the “Western European Championship” and was open to all European countries after 1989, while the last tournaments took place in 2006.
On the court
MEVZA’s main focus is certainly on the underage categories in both, indoor and Beach Volleyball. Teams from all eight MEVZA countries took part in the last organized events. The inclusion of some underage competitions into the qualifying phase of the European Championships has only underlined the importance of them.
Since last year snow volleyball has been a new challenge. Similar to beach volleyball, Austria and the Czech Republic are certainly expected to be very active in it and have already been playing a leading role in growing the game both on and off the court.
