Shortly before the XXXIV CEV General Assembly held last September 26-27 in Copenhagen, 8 national federations (Portugal, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, France, and Switzerland) decided to join forces to set up the so-called Western European Volleyball Zonal Association (WEVZA). To follow up on this meeting, the members of the WEVZA Executive Committee met on October 22 at the headquarters of the Portuguese Volleyball Federation in Porto.
Spain’s Agustin Martin Santos, President of the WEVZA (which will be also known under the French acronym AOEV that stands for Association de l’Ouest Européen de Volleyball), and Vice Presidents Vicente Araujo (POR) and Hans Nieukerke (NED) enjoyed this opportunity to start discussing about the WEVZA statutes, administrative affairs (including a logo), the budget as well as a possible competition calendar for the year 2014.
To follow on this meeting, the AOEV Technical Commission will meet on November 14-15 in Switzerland while a second meeting of the Executive Committee was scheduled for January 2014 in Madrid, Spain. This first ExCom meeting was attended also by the Technical Director of the Royal Spanish Volleyball Federation, Luis Muchaga, and by the General Secretary of the Portuguese Volleyball Federation, Teodemiro de Carvalho.
After its establishment and while waiting for the official recognition by CEV and FIVB, the AOEV/WEVZA will start working with their core activities being the promotion and development of Volleyball and Beach Volleyball across the youth in the various member countries. The AOEV/WEVZA will join the four other Zonal Associations placed under the CEV umbrella (BVA, EEVZA, MEVZA, and NEVZA) and the Small Countries Division (SCD) in that mission.
