Well, according to the latest FINA report, there are 478,791 people worldwide who are registered as water polo players.
The number of water polo players in the world is one of the results of a gigantic survey organized by FINA to assess the state of aquatic sports around the world.
Based on the data supplied by the national federations, FINA published a lot of information about numbers of athletes, coaches, officials, pools… in the world.
FINA asked its 209 member federations to provide the data about aquatic sports in their countries. Even 197 federations responded.
The most crucial information in the Survey is the number of registered aquatic athletes in the world – nearly 35 million. Among them are almost 35.000 elite water polo players. The details of the Survey are published in the newest issue of the FINA Magazine.
Without any doubt, FINA made great efforts to monitor and explain the structure and functioning of aquatic sports.
Everything sounds fantastic, but there are some confusing facts in the part of the report about water polo. (we didn’t analyze the elements about other sports and facilities)
Probably, there are typing errors or other mistakes in the report, because it’s hard to explain some of the results.
According to the report, there are only two water polo referees in Oceania.
For example, FINA published that there are 20,985 water polo players and even 11,327 water polo coaches in Asia. The summation of the number of water polo coaches on other continents is 13,105.
FINA published that 267,513 persons play water polo in Europe. But, if you sum the numbers of players of all five categories in Europe (elite players; junior; youth & younger; masters; amateur), you’ll get 147,683.
Also, according to the report, Europe has 124,980 water polo players in performance (elite, junior, youth), but the sum of these three categories is 88,571. For other continents, there is no divergence between the published data about players in performance and the summation of the athletes in these three categories.
Besides mentioned, there are more unclear numbers and facts about water polo.
According to the article in the FINA Magazine, the number of aquatic athletes in all sports (swimming, open water, artistic swimming, water polo, diving, high diving) is 34,186,755, while 288,496 people work as coaches and there are 159,963 officials (officials, judges, referees).
These are water polo numbers from FINA report:
World
Water polo players: 478,791
Coaches: 24,482
Referees: 22,960.
Water polo players in performance (elite, junior, youth): 204,468
Africa
Water polo players: 30,764
WP coaches: 762
WP referees: 874
Number of players per categories
Elite 513
Junior 10,712
Youth & younger 8,267
Masters 259
Amateur 4,323
African water polo players in performance (elite, junior, youth): 19,492
Americas
Water polo players: 114,438
WP coaches: 3,421
WP referees: 1,353
Number of players in each category
Elite 3,029
Junior 9,784
Youth & younger 7,736
Masters 5,945
Amateur 34,819
American water polo players in performance (elite, junior, youth): 20,549
Asia
Water polo players: 20,985
WP coaches: 11,327
WP referees: 1,568
Number of players per categories
Elite 1,354
Junior 3,106
Youth & younger 4,900
Masters 579
Amateur 3,084
Asian water polo players in performance (elite, junior, youth): 9,360
Europe
Water polo players: 267,513
WP coaches: 8,155
WP referees: 19,113
Number of players per categories
Elite 28,293
Junior 33,031
Youth & younger 27,247
Masters 17,710
Amateur 41,402
European water polo players in performance (elite, junior, youth) 124,980.
Oceania
Water polo players: 44,381
WP coaches: 767
WP referees: 2
Number of athletes per categories
Elite 330
Junior 17,217
Youth & younger 11,910
Masters 3,454
Amateur 7,195
Oceania water polo players in performance (elite, junior, youth): 29,457
