The FINA Men’s Water Polo World League Super Final will be played in Genova, Italy from Monday, June 16 to Sunday, June 22, with the participation of the best eight teams from the World League Preliminary Rounds: Australia, China, Egypt, Greece, Italy (as host), Montenegro, Serbia, and Spain, as well as teams Canada and USA from Group Americas. The semi-final and final rounds take place on June 21 and June 22 respectively.

The 2008 preliminary edition of the World League featured participation of 17 national teams from four continents – namely: Algeria, Australia, China, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Italy, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain and Tunisia. These teams were grouped according to continent and then played-off in a series of tournaments held in the following locations:

-Tokyo (JPN) from May 26 to June 1 for Group Asia-Oceania;
-Casablanca (MAR) from June 6-8 for Group Africa; and,
-Either Budva (MNE) & Athens (GRE), or Novi Sad (SRB) & Portugalete (ESP) for two European Groups, held over two weekends between May 23 and June 1.

This year’s participation obviously includes most of the best ranked teams from the 2007 FINA Water Polo World League Super Final, but also a full Group Africa, who squared-off for the first time in the history of the competition. FINA is thrilled to see the addition of a new continental group of emerging water polo nations playing in the World League – distributing in 2008 a total of 512,500 US$ in prize money -, as their involvement proves this competition is continuing to enhance this discipline worldwide.

By uniting top-ranked teams and exposing the power and skill of the sport, the FINA Water Polo World League seeks to promote Water Polo worldwide by capturing the interest of more audiences, media coverage, and FINA National Federations. The 2008 World League Super Final, with its truly international team roster, will certainly continue to advance FINA’s Water Polo development ambitions.