How has the Russia-Ukraine conflict affected the volleyball community?

Published in

The Istanbul Chronicle

7 min readApr 11, 2022

Russia’s attack on Ukraine is what everybody is talking about nowadays and has been on the news for several days now. From the beginning of the conflict, a lot of sanctions were imposed against Russia in various fields: many companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, Coca-Cola etc. suspended operations, car manufacturers like Maserati, Chrysler, Opel, Dodge, Peugeot, etc. suspended car exports and imports, the US banned Russian oil and other energy imports, the EU removed Russian banks from SWIFT, many countries closed their airspace to Russian planes, hacktivist group Anonymous declared ‘cyber war’ against Russia and so on. A lot has been going on within the sports community too, especially volleyball.

Russia had already had a lot of problems in sports because of corruption and state-run doping program which surfaced after Russia finished on top of the medal table in 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. An independent commission that was formed to probe the allegations revealed evidence of widespread doping usage among Russian athletes and Russian Ministry of Sport’s manipulation of athletes’ test results and sample swapping. The country was banned from competing in all major sporting events but athletes were allowed to attend the competitions as neutrals under the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). With the war, the situation got even worse for the country, remarkably in volleyball since Russia has always been very successful and active in this field. They have raised world-known stars like Arina Fedorovtseva, Anna Lazareva, Nataliya Goncharova, Ivan Iakovlev, Maxim Mikhaylov and Egor Kliuka. Russia men’s national volleyball team is in third place within 220 teams with 352 points in the FIVB (International Volleyball Federation) Senior World Ranking (Men) and has 1 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze medals in the last 6 Olympic Games. In the FIVB Senior World Ranking (Women), the country is in eighth place within 220 teams with 278 points.

Many important organisations were planned to be held in Russia this year, such as two rounds of the Volleyball Nations League that was going to be held in June and July. This is one of the most important events for the volleyball community with 16 national teams -12 core and 4 challenger- competing in a friendly environment every year. Shortly after the war started, the FIVB informed the Russian Volleyball Federation that VNL will be relocated with immediate effect.

Some of the events were going to be held in Russia for the first time, FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship for instance. It was going to start in August 2022 and end in September 2022 with 10 host cities: Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Ufa, Ekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Kaliningrad, and Yaroslavl. The preparations were in full swing; the approved venues for the event were revealed, and the first official ambassadors were announced. After the invasion started, FIVB made a statement that “it would be impossible to prepare and stage the World Championships in Russia due to the war in Ukraine” and that they “will seek an alternative host nation(s) to ensure that the global Volleyball Family, including the National Federations, athletes, officials and fans all feel safe” on March 1st. A week later, Volleyball World opened an accelerated bidding process to relocate the championship.

The European Volleyball Confederation (CEV) organizes a Champions League each year, in which best clubs, chosen based on ranking list for European Cup Competitions, take part. This year, there were six Russian teams in total: Dinamo-Ak Bars KAZAN, Dinamo MOSCOW, Lokomotiv KALININGRAD Region in women’s; Dinamo MOSCOW, Lokomotiv NOVOSIBIRSK, Zenit SAINT PETERSBURG in men’s. All the teams in women’s and two teams in men’s advanced to the quarter finals. Lots were drawn on February 18th with great excitement when Russian invasion started a week later. After less than a week, CEV announced that “all Russian and Belarusian national teams, athletes, clubs and officials (are) not eligible to participate in European competitions” and that “no Volleyball, Beach Volleyball and Snow Volleyball events or competitions organised under the CEV umbrella will be taking place in Russia and Ukraine“ until further notice. The quarter finals got affected, of course, as all the teams from Russia and Belarus were eliminated.

In women’s, the derby between Dinamo-Ak Bars KAZAN and Dinamo MOSCOW (QF-1) was cancelled, causing the winner of the Vero Volley MONZA- A. Carraro Imoco CONEGLIANO (QF-2) match advance directly to the Super Finals. The match between Fenerbahçe Opet ISTANBUL and Lokomotiv KALININGRAD Region (QF-4) did not take place as Fenerbahçe Opet directly advanced to the semi-finals. Only the winner of Developres RZESZÓW-VakifBank ISTANBUL (QF-4) match had to go through all the stages.

In men’s, first quarter final between Sir Sicoma Monini PERUGIA and Zenit SAINT PETERSBURG and the fourth quarter final between Grupa Azoty KĘDZIERZYN-KOŹLE and Dinamo MOSCOW were not played, as Sir Sicoma Monini PERUGIA and Grupa Azoty KĘDZIERZYN-KOŹLE advanced directly to the semi-finals. The other two matches were played as per schedule.

I think that it was sensible for CEV and FIVB to remove competitions from Russia since it might have caused serious safety issues for all the fans, athletes and officials as there is an ongoing hot war. Besides, it is a great source of income for the hosting country with all the tourists coming to stay in hotels, eating in restaurants and going around to see the important places. But, I think it is incredibly unfair to ban athletes and private clubs. I think sports is one of the few areas that people become one, no matter what their country is or what their political views are. I believe that sports should be completely separated from politics; in this case, it is not the player’s fault that the country they were born in is at war. I follow many Russian volleyball players and most of them openly say that they are against the war. Although some of the players do not even live in Russia now, since they play for other clubs in other countries, it still affects their personal career. Fortunately, with the huge reactions from the fans about letting politics ruin the spirit of volleyball, the statement was changed from “all athletes” to “Beach Volleyball and Snow Volleyball athletes” which is still discriminatory but is better than the previous one.

The teams that were eliminated from the Champions League had many titles in the previous editions of the tournament. These are teams with high reputation, they play well enough to make it to quarterfinals within the 20 best teams of the world; but they get eliminated after all the effort they put in the preliminary rounds. All the money they spent on equipment, travel and accommodation go to waste just because their headquarters are in Russia. It is not unjust only for the eliminated teams, but also the remaining teams since some of them still had to go through all the stages, despite the ones that advanced directly to the semi-finals. It is great work both physically and mentally for the players of each team to go through the games but some of them do not have to go through this now that their opponents are no longer qualified to compete. I think CEV should have replaced the teams based on the preliminary rounds instead of cancelling the games. This would have been a wonderful opportunity for the new teams to experience the atmosphere and be a fair solution for the organization to stay competitive and fun, which also would have been better for the fans.