By OSCAR PILIPILI
Nairobi,Kenya:Kenya and other continental national teams will have to walk a tedious journey to qualify for 2014 FIVB World Championships.
This follows Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) confirmation for the new format for the 2014 World Championship Qualifications due to be played between June and July.
The new format passes through three stages till the African qualifiers secure their tickets to the FIVB prestigious events to be hosted by Poland for men and Italy for women next year.
According to a report by the CAVB, the long way starts by the first phase, which is the Sub-Zonal tournaments featuring the whole 43 men and 39 women participants.
ZONAL DISTRIBUTION
Kenya Volleyball Federation secretary general Evans Wasike told FeverPitch in Nairobi yesterday that the teams will be divided into 12 sub-groups adding: “Qualification format has changed and teams will walk a long journey to get to the World Championships.”
Zones one and seven countries will be collected in one pool as each of them has only four countries, while zones two, three, four, five and six will be divided into two sub groups.
Kenya is drawn in Zone Five under Pool ‘H’ alongside Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.
Kenya has already selected provisional teams for the World Championships Qualifiers.
The top three teams from each sub-zonal pool qualify to the second phase, which is the zonal phase that involves 36 countries in both genders.
In the final phase of the men qualifications, the top three ranked team in the last FIVB ranking will join the 12 qualifiers to make a total of 15 teams.
They will be divided into three final pools where the champions of each pool secure their tickets to the FIVB event (three African qualifiers).
In the final phase of the women qualifications the same number of zonal qualifiers (12 teams) will be joined by the top two countries in the FIVB Ranking making 14 teams.
These teams will be divided into two pools each of seven teams where the winner of each pool makes their journey to the World Championship.
The sub-zonal phase will be held in June and July while the zonal phase will be organised in October and November, and the finals in January and February next year.
