Neither men’s nor women’s team of Brazil won’t participate in the water polo tournaments at the World Championships in Fukuoka.
The Brazilians qualified for the Worlds as silver medalists at the Pan American Championships held in Bauru two weeks ago. Canada won the gold medals in both competitions.
Today, the Brazilian Confederation of Aquatics Sports (CBDA), through its Water Polo board, officially announced that their water polo teams wouldn’t play at the Fukuoka Championships. As announced, the Confederation already informed World Aquatics about this decision.
According to the announcement, this decision hasn’t been made suddenly.
“The planning for 2023 did not include, from the beginning, the participation of the women’s and men’s teams in the Fukuoka World Championships. The main objective of the water polo teams for this season is to win Olympic spots via the Pan American Games, which will be held in Santiago, Chile”, the Federation announced.
Because of that, CBDA’s Water Polo board dedicated part of the budget to training and preparation games, which should be held in the second half of the year in Europe as part of the preparations for the Pan American Games, which will take place in October.
“The format of the World Championship, in Japan, would take a significant amount of the budget and make both actions unfeasible.”, the Federation announced.
Who will fill vacancy?
The draw for the World Championships was made yesterday. World Aquatics made the draw according to the standard rules. There were no official indications that some of the 32 qualified teams could withdraw (or had already withdrawn).
Brazil’s men were drawn into Group C with Croatia, Hungary and Japan. The female team was supposed to play against Greece, Italy, South Africa in the group stage.
According to the rules, the next highest-ranked team in the continental qualifications will be invited to fill a vacancy. Argentina’s male and female teams won bronze medals at the Pan American Championships. Only three teams participated in the men’s tournament and four in the female competition at the Pan American Championships. Peru’s women finished 4th.
If neither Argentina nor Peru accepts the invitation and there is still an unfilled vacancy, then each vacancy shall be filled by the next highest-placed team(s) from the continental qualification tournament or continental championships with the following rotation: Asia, Americas, Europe, Oceania and Africa.
Iran (men) and Thailand (women) are the highest-placed non-qualified teams from the Asian qualifications. They will be invited if the other South American teams don’t fill the vacancy that appeared after Brazil’s withdrawal. The following non-qualified Asian teams are South Korea (men) and Singapore (women). Georgia (men) and Croatia (women) are the best non-qualified European teams, etc.
There is not much time. World Aquatics has to make new moves quickly.
Brazil will play at World U20 Championships
Brazil will send their teams to this years’ World U20 Championships in Romania (men) and Portugal (women)
“It is worth remembering that, this year, the two Under-20 World Championships will be held, and Brazil will send the two teams (men’s and women’s).
The board believes that, in this way, the funds allocated to the modality within the Piva Law (funding from the budget of the Brazilian Olympic Committe- Ed) will be better used, aiming at the main focus of the modality: being at the 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris, and preparing the new generation of the modality to compete in international events .”, the CBDA concluded in its announcement
