The 2026 Men's European Water Polo Championship is the 37th edition of the biannual continental tournament in men's national water polo teams, organised by Europe's governing aquatics body, European Aquatics. The tournament takes place from 10 to 25 January 2026. This edition will mark the 100 year anniversary of the championships. This edition is the first one ever to have a 25 meter swimming pool, down from 30 meters.[1]
The competition will be held in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, for the third time.[2] This will be the second edition to have different hosts for both genders after European Aquatics made the change permanent in March 2025. This edition will also witness a new format, introducing a second group stage as opposed to an extended knockout round.[3]
16 teams will take part for the sixth time. The top eight teams, including hosts Serbia, from the 2024 version qualified automatically, while the remaining eights teams progressed via qualification. Turkey qualified after a 6-year drought, while Germany failed to qualify on merit for the first time.
Belgrade was given the hosting rights on 13 May 2022.[2] This will be Serbia's third time hosting after 2006 and 2016. Serbia had originally been given the women's event as well, but decided not to host it in order to focus on the men's championship.[4]
Preparations
A dedicated website was created on 25 August 2025.[5]
During the 14th Great Sports Fair of Serbia from 26 to 28 September 2025, at Ada Ciganlija, the slogan for the tournament was unveiled, being the phrase "Power that unites".[6]
On 11 December 2025, Uniqa was announced as a sponsor for the tournament.[7]
A new system will be used for this tournament. The new format was unveiled in March 2025. This is the third different format in three editions.[10] Despite some slight changes, the format is very adjacent to the format previously used for the European Handball Championship when the tournament still had 16 teams (the format has been discontinued due to the European Handball Championship expanding to 24 teams). Head coach of Croatia, Ivica Tucak, supports the format change, saying it gives teams a second chance to come back if they stumble earlier in the tournament.[11]
Group stage
In each group there will be two teams from the last tournament and two teams from the qualifiers. They will play a round-robin in their groups. The top three teams of each group will advance to the second group stage. The top three teams of each group will advance to the second group stage (Group A & Group C in Group E and Group B & Group D in Group F) with all results are carried over. The four-bottom ranked-teams will play in placement games.
Second group stage
The advancing teams will play the opponents from the other group in the second group stage. From the second group stage, the top-two ranked teams of each group advance to the semifinals, all other teams will play in placement games.
Knockout stage
In the knockout stage, the four remaining teams progress to the knockout stage. Two semifinals and a final will determine who wins the championship.
Map of qualifiers for the 2026 Men's European Water Polo Championship:
Team qualified for 2026 Men's European Water Polo Championship
Team failed to qualify
Team banned from competition
Did not enter
For the sixth time, sixteen teams will take part after the expansion in 2016. Overall, 18 teams took part in qualification. Qualification took place in 8–11 June 2025. Qualification is broken up as follows:
Regarding the teams, there is one change to the line-up, with Turkey returning after a six year drought. The Turks replaced two-time champions, Germany, who missed out for the first time since 1962 and failed to qualify for the first time ever.[12]
The lowest ranked team to qualify was Israel, ranked 17th, while Germany is the highest ranked team to not qualify, placed 10th.
The draw was held at 19:00 CET on 13 September 2025 at the Beli dvor in Belgrade, Serbia.[18][19] Serbian journalist, Marija Kilibarda, was the host for the draw. Before the draw began, speeches were done by Serbian water polo federation president and local organising committee chair, Viktor Jelenić, and European Aquatics president, Antonio Silva. The guests were Serbian Olympic water polo players, Filip Filipović and Milan Aleksić, who assisted with the draw. The draw started with, in order, pots 1, 2, 3 and 4 being drawn, with each team selected then allocated into the first available group alphabetically. The position for the team within the group would then be drawn (for the purpose of the schedule).
On 24 November, the following 18 referees were selected for the tournament.[21][22] The referees represent 18 countries, including the 16 participating teams alongside match officials from Germany and Portugal.
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 2 points for a penalty shootout win, 1 point for a penalty shootout loss, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:
Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches.
If the ranking of one of these teams is determined, the above criteria are consecutively followed until the ranking of all teams is determined. If no ranking can be determined, a drawing of lots will decide the outcome.
First match(es) will be played: 16 January 2026. Source: EuropeanAquatics Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) head-to-head points; 3) head-to-head goal difference; 4) head-to-head number of goals scored; 5) goal difference.
First match(es) will be played: 16 January 2026. Source: EuropeanAquatics Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) head-to-head points; 3) head-to-head goal difference; 4) head-to-head number of goals scored; 5) goal difference.
First match(es) will be played: January 2026. Source: EuropeanAquatics Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) head-to-head points; 3) head-to-head goal difference; 4) head-to-head number of goals scored; 5) goal difference.
First match(es) will be played: unknown. Source: [citation needed] Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) head-to-head points; 3) head-to-head goal difference; 4) head-to-head number of goals scored; 5) Goal difference.
For the first time, player of the match awards will be given during the knockout stage.[23] A player of the match award is given to the player deemed as playing the best in each match.
The championship was originally slated for the summer of 2026. However, European Aquatics announced in March 2025 that this edition would actually take place in January 2026, in a timeslot that clashes significantly with the 2026 European Men's Handball Championship.[24] Reportedly, sources close to the European Handball Federation stated that they were surprised with this decision as the European Men's Handball Championship has always been in January without any competition from other sports and now they might have fight for prime-time slots with water polo.
French handball legend, Nikola Karabatić also said this about the situation:
“We’ve built the Handball EURO as a January tradition for decades. And now water polo suddenly appeared in the same window… it changes everything.”
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