After setting up an historic partnership with Polish Volleyball Federation ,Future Stars caught up with Sebastian Swidersk, President of the Federation.Sebastian Swiderski who after a very impressive playing carrer which include coming second in the 2006 World Cup became one of the most succesfull administrators and operators of the world volleyball.
Sebastian Swiderski shares his unique persperctive on array of the issues including upcoming World Championship,directions of further expantion for world of volleyball and explains why Olympic tournaments are a completely different type of competition.
You are leading Polish volleyball in an era of unprecedented success, both at club level and on the international stage with the national teams. While this is an exceptional moment, it also raises an important question: how do you keep the momentum going and maintain the enormous popularity of volleyball in Poland?
I’m convinced that the most important is continuing to win and deliver results on the international stage, whether in club competitions or with the national teams. At the same time, we must keep investing in the future by identifying new talent, strengthening the grassroots of the sport, the base of the volleyball pyramid, and expanding it through new initiatives aimed at children and young people. It is essential to ensure that as many new young players as possible are drawn into our sport.
How can global volleyball compete with other team sports in the media and sponsorship market and truly become a global sport, given that football is in a league of its own and sports like basketball have a powerful growth engine such as the NBA?
It is certainly not easy to find your place in today’s sports landscape, especially when you are fully aware that financial resources in other disciplines are significantly higher. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see that many countries and volleyball communities are rebuilding and reinvesting in the sport. Greece is a good example, a country that was once a major volleyball power, particularly at league level, and also enjoyed strong results with its national teams. After a deep downturn, they are now gradually returning to their former level. Similar stories can be seen in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.
It is clear that volleyball is once again playing an increasingly important role, not only in Europe, but globally. The work being done by the International Federation, Volleyball World and the European Federation, along with efforts to promote the sport in new and sometimes even exotic markets, is paying off. More and more people are following volleyball and taking an interest in it. Asia is another excellent example, having become a highly promising and increasingly popular destination for the sport.
I believe the key is to stay the course, continue this work and focus on doing our job well, rather than constantly comparing ourselves to the NBA or the NFL. Those are fully professional leagues with enormous budgets and huge player salaries. Volleyball must find its own place in the global sports ecosystem and then work hard to thrive within it.
How do you assess the impact of the heavy national-team schedule on the development of volleyball worldwide?
I actually believe that there are fewer national-team competitions today than there were in the past. Events such as the World Cup, which used to last almost an entire month and was an extremely demanding tournament, no longer exist. In addition, the calendar and competition system have been streamlined, and the qualification pathway to the Olympic Games has been clarified. As a result, there are certainly fewer national-team matches than there were a dozen or so years ago.
At the same time, the number of club matches has increased. Domestic leagues continue to expand, and European club competitions are growing stronger, with more and more teams eager to take part. In this sense, volleyball is moving firmly toward a fully professional model, in which players understand that playing every three days is part of the job and something they must adapt to and prepare for properly.
That said, some adjustments are still needed. National-team players are effectively competing for twelve months a year, with only a very short break between the club season and the international campaign, which places a particularly heavy physical and mental burden on them. Meanwhile, players who are not part of the national teams often face a long wait, almost six months, between the end of the league season and the start of the next club campaign. This imbalance clearly needs to be addressed and will require thoughtful solutions.
Next year Poland will host the World Championship. How will this event shape the sport in Poland over the next 18 months? Will everything be geared toward reclaiming the world title?
Of course, we would like to align everything with that goal, but in reality it is not entirely possible, many things can happen between now and the start of the World Championship. That said, the dream shared by the fans, the players, the entire volleyball community, and above all head coach Nikola Grbić, who is missing only this one title from his collection, is to win the gold medal.
The next 18 months will therefore be a period of intensive and demanding work at every level. A major focus will be placed on promoting the event across all platforms: television, radio and social media alike. This will be a truly special tournament on a massive scale, hosted across several Polish cities. In total, 32 national teams will come to Poland, divided into eight groups, which means a huge number of matches. Our goal is to convince fans not only from Poland, but from all over the world, that it is worth coming here to support their teams and be part of this event.
Speaking of global dominance, how would you explain why it was so difficult for Poland to break the so-called “Olympic quarterfinal curse,” especially at a time when the team was regularly winning world titles or at least reaching the very top level of international competition?
The Olympic tournament is very specific, and you need to know how to function within its unique environment. The Olympic Village itself, the presence of the biggest stars from all over the world, this all generates additional emotions. At the same time, there are challenges we do not usually face, such as limited access to training facilities, dining halls or gyms. Teams must learn how to adapt to these conditions. It is also important to remember that for some national teams, such as the United States, the Olympic Games are the single most important event of the four-year cycle. They build their entire preparation around peaking at the Olympics, often placing less emphasis on competitions like the World Championships.
For us, of course, the Olympic Games are hugely important, from the perspective of the players, the fans, and also the expectations of the volleyball community and sponsors. We are a team that wants and is expected to win medals at every tournament. But the Olympics come only once every four years, and during that time generational changes often take place, with new players coming in who need time to settle at this level. Ultimately, success at an Olympic tournament requires both time and a certain amount of luck.
Returning to the World Championships, how do you assess Poland’s chances in the tournament? And looking even further ahead, now that the quarterfinal curse has finally been broken, how do you see Poland’s prospects at the Los Angeles Olympic Games?
When it comes to the World Championships hosted in Poland, there is really no other way to put it than this: our objective is to fight for the gold medal and reclaim the world title. We will do everything possible to move in that direction and to ensure that the national team has the best possible conditions to prepare for the tournament.
As for the Olympic Games, that is still a very distant topic. At this stage, it is difficult to say which players will be part of the squad at that time, whether new faces will emerge or whether some experienced players might return to the national team. The perspective is still far off. That said, head coach Nikola Grbić always sets the highest possible goals, and I am certain that this approach will be the same in Los Angeles as it will be at the World Championships on home soil.
You are an absolutely remarkable figure in the world of volleyball. A player competing at the highest level, a World Championship silver medallist, who then becomes the head of major sports organizations at both club and federation level and achieves even greater success. So, what is your secret to success?
Work, work, and more work! Beyond that, it’s about listening to people, being open to collaboration, drawing the right conclusions, and implementing new ideas. Sometimes progress comes from making small, subtle changes. I’m also fortunate to work with exceptional people, extremely smart, organized, and capable, and I fully subscribe to the saying that “you are only as smart as the people around you.” My goal is to listen to them and not get in the way, so that together we can continue moving toward success.
Can Polish volleyball also help stimulate the development of the sport in other countries? Very recently, you signed a cooperation agreement with Future Stars in the United Kingdom, aimed at developing youth volleyball there. What were the main motivations behind this partnership?
This is yet another collaboration agreement we have signed. Previously, we concluded similar agreements, for example with Algeria, with the sole purpose of promoting our sport in new regions and raising the overall level of volleyball worldwide. We want the competition in countries we cooperate with to be as strong as possible, because we know very well that higher competition leads to higher standards and that, in turn, generates greater interest among fans. In that sense, it is also an investment in ourselves.
The same applies to the United Kingdom. We want volleyball to grow there as well, where there is an impressive number of young people and others eager to enjoy sports, not just football, but a variety of disciplines. Our goal is to give them opportunities to discover and enjoy volleyball while helping the sport expand globally.
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