BEING the first elected president of the game’s governing body FIVB, Dr Ary S Graca’s challenges are manifold.
Since succeeding China’s Jizhong Wei as FIVB chief in September, 2012, Graca had laid down a specific plan to promote volleyball as a core Olympic sport and valuable partner for the Olympic Movement.
A former Brazil international, Graca is just the fourth chief of FIVB, after France’s Paul Libaud (1947-’84), Mexico’s Ruben Acosta (1984 to 2008) and Jizhong (1908 to ’12).
Almost two years into his office, Graca believes he is well on course to achieve his main goal of making the sport visually more appealing.
“Volleyball is increasingly becoming a way of life these days. Gone are the days when it was seen as a summer sport, especially in European countries. My vision is to make it more appealing to fans of all ages across the world. People should see this sport as something that stimulates social change,” Graca told Doha Stadium Plus, on the sidelines of the Emir’s Cup final recently.
The 71-year-old dwelled further on his plans for the development of the sport.
“We’ve come with various means to make the sport change with times. After all, change is the instrument of progress. We’ve kept on innovating and evolving all the time. By embracing the latest technologies, we want to expand the boundaries of the sport,” said Graca.
“Rule changes also make the sport attractive. At the ’13 Under-23 World Championships, we tried two new rules — 21-point sets instead of the regular 25 and an interval of 15 seconds between the referee’s whistle and the serve. Recently, we introduced the Corporate Social Responsibility programme, which’ll allow the sport to reach new markets and open doors to new countries in Africa and Asia,” he said.
Graca opined that to meet his objectives, the sport needed to expand beyond its horizon.
“To keep volleyball vibrant and in tune with modern times, we need partnerships with a wider community as well as those beyond the sport. The tie-up with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is a step towards this.
“Through my association with the IOC’s Sport for All Commission, I’ve proved how volleyball can be used for the development of societies around the world. We’re fully committed to the Olympic Agenda ’20 and will work in close liaison with the IOC,” said Graca.
Just like the Twenty20 format in cricket, beach volleyball is also increasingly becoming popular.
Qatar have taken rapid strides in beach volleyball and have been regularly competing in FIVB events. Graca believes other countries in the region can follow suit.
“It’s an Olympic sport and we increased the number of events to give players more opportunities. In the run-up to the ’16 Rio Games, we’re committed to reinforce the sport’s position globally,” he said.
FIVB has been very active on the social media in recent times and Graca believes that is one way of reaching out to a wider audience.
“Communication is an important tool in modern-day sport. Thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, we’ve been able to increase our fan base. In order to engage a wider and younger fan base, and introduce new audiences to the sport, FIVB is very active on the communication front,” he added.
Calling the doping menace as one of the severe challenges for the modern sport, Graca advocates a zero-tolerance policy to eradicate it.
Though the sport has largely remained free of doping charges, there have been a few casualties and Graca believes that is one of the major challenges ahead.
“In a sport like volleyball, there haven’t been many cases of doping. That’s largely due to the strict measures we’ve adopted from the very beginning. It may be recalled that when the World Anti-Doping Agency Code was introduced for the first time in ’99, FIVB was one of the first federations, which accepted the norms. Our strict rule of punishing not only the individual, but the entire team has acted as a deterrent to the cheats.
Graca was all praise for the Qatar Volleyball Association’s efforts in raising awareness of doping.
“The QVA recently organised a workshop which involved coaches, players and all others connected with the sport. Such initiatives will help a long way in creating more awareness of doping. It also helped the participants learn more scientific methods in dealing with the doping menace,” he signed off.
Source: Doha Stadium Plus