FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League
The FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League is an international volleyball competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of the "" (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The first tournament took place between May and July 2018, with the final taking place in Nanjing, China. United States won the inaugural edition, defeating Turkey in the final. The creation of the tournament was announced in October 2017 as a joint project between the FIVB, the IMG and 21 national federations. The Nations League replaced the World Grand Prix, a former  annual women's international event that ran between 1993 and 2017. A corresponding tournament for men's national teams is the FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League. History. Adoption. In June 2017, Argentinian website Voley Plus reported that the FIVB would drastically change the format for both the 2018 World League and World Grand Prix. According to the reports, starting from 2018, the World League and the World Grand Prix would have only one Group (no more Groups 1, 2 and 3) of 16 national teams. In October 2017, the FIVB announced, via a press release, the creation of the  men's and women's Volleyball Nations League, confirming the tournaments as a replacement for the World League and World Grand Prix. Format. As in the former World Grand Prix, the competition will be divided in two phases, albeit with changes in the competition formula: a preliminary round (known as preliminary round), with a system of rotating host cities, and a final round played in a pre-selected host city. The preliminary round is held over five weeks, versus three in the World Grand Prix. Each week, the participating teams are organized in pools, and each team plays one match  against all other teams in its pool. All games in a pool take place over a weekend in the same city. When all matches of the preliminary round have been played, the top five teams in the overall standings qualify for the final round, and the remaining ones leave the competition. The host nation automatically qualifies for the final round. 16 national teams will compete in the inaugural edition of the tournament; 12 core teams, which are always qualified, and 4 challenger teams, which can face relegation. Preliminary round. The 16 teams compete in round-robin tournament, with every core  team hosting a pool al least once. The teams are divided into 4 pools of 4 teams in each week and compete five weeks long, with a total of 120 matches. The top five teams after the round-robin tournament join the hosts in the final round. The relegation will consider the four challenger teams and the last ranked challenger team will be excluded from next edition. The winners of the Challenger Cup would qualify for next edition as a challenger team. Final round. The six qualified teams play in 2 pools of 3 teams in a round-robin format . The top 2 teams of each pool qualify for the semifinals. The first ranked teams play against the second ranked teams in this round. The winners of the semifinals advance to compete for the Nations League title. Challenger Cup. The FIVB Volleyball Challenger Cup will be a competition for national teams which will run in concurrence with the Volleyball Nations League. The Challenger Cup will consist of teams not participating in the current edition of the Volleyball Nations League and will feature one host team and five teams from the five continental confederations as follows: The Continental Confederations, responsible for  determining the teams that will qualify for the FIVB Challenger Cup, are free to organise their Continental Qualification Tournament or use an existing competition to define the qualified team(s). The FIVB Challenger Cup will be held before the FIVB Volleyball Nations League Finals and the winners will qualify for the next year's VNL as a challenger team. Hosts. List of hosts by number of final round championships hosted. Appearance. "Table current through the end of 2021 edition."