2026 Men's European Water Polo Championship


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.
The competition will be held in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, for the third time. 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.
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.
This tournament will act as a qualifier for the 2027 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest and 2028 European Championship.
Spain are the defending champions, beating Croatia, 11–10, in the final in Zagreb. However, they failed to defend their after missing out on the semifinals. Hosts Serbia won their ninth title after beating Hungary 10–7 in the final. Greece managed to be on the podium for the first time after beating Italy in the bronze medal game with an score of 12–5.

Host selection

Belgrade was given the hosting rights on 13 May 2022. 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.

Preparations

  • A dedicated website was created on 25 August 2025.
  • 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".
  • On 11 December 2025, Uniqa was announced as a sponsor for the tournament.

Tickets

Tickets went on sale on 2 October 2025.

Partners and sponsors

Format

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. 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. 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.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 main round with all results are carried over. The four-bottom ranked-teams will play in placement games.Main round
The advancing teams will play the opponents from the other group in the main round. From the main round, 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.

Venue

Similar to 2016, the Belgrade Arena will be used for the entire competition. Built in 2004, it is the biggest indoor arena in Serbia with a capacity of 18,386. Due to the pool having to be raised, the capacity was reduced to 12,500.

Draw

The draw was held at 19:00 CET on 13 September 2025 at the Beli dvor in Belgrade, Serbia. 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.

Seeding

The pots were decided by the rankings of the 2024 European Championship and also of the 2026 Qualifiers.
Team
1
2
3
4

Team
A
B
C
D

Draw results

Team
B1
B2
B3
B4

Team
D1
D2
D3
D4

Referees

On 24 November, the following 18 referees were selected for the tournament. The referees represent 18 countries, including the 16 participating teams alongside match officials from Germany and Portugal.

Squads

Each nation has to submit a list of 15 players.

Preliminary round

Tiebreakers

Teams are ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:
  1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  4. Goal difference in all group matches;
  5. 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.
''All times are local.''

Group A


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[|Group B]


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[|Group C]


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Group D


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Classification round

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Main round

All points obtained in the preliminary round against teams that advance as well are carried over.

[|Group E]


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[|Group F]


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Knockout stage

Semifinals

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Final standings

Greece and Malta achieved their best placements, finishing 3rd and 13th respectively.

Qualification table



Method of qualification
Qualified for the phase indicated based on this tournament

2026 Men's European Water Polo Championship

Serbia
Ninth title
Team roster:
Radoslav Filipović, Dušan Mandić, Strahinja Rašović, Sava Ranđelović, Miloš Ćuk, Đorđe Lazić, Radomir Drašović, Nikola Jakšić, Nemanja Vico, Nikola Dedović, Petar Jakšić, Viktor Rašović, Milan Glušac, Vasilije Martinović, Nikola Lukić.
Head Coach: Uroš Stevanović

All Star Team

The all-star team was announced on 25 January 2026.
PositionPlayer
Goalkeeper Milan Glušac
Field player Dušan Mandić
Field player Strahinja Rašović
Field player Krisztián Manhercz
Field player Ádám Nagy
Field player Stylianos Argyropoulos
Field player Konstantinos Kakaris

Statistics

Discipline

The following suspensions were served during the tournament:
PlayerOffenceSuspension
Dušan Mandić in Group C vs Spain Group C vs Israel, Group E vs France
Álvaro Granados in Group C vs Serbia Group C vs Netherlands
Dinos Genidounias in Group B vs Croatia Group F vs Turkey, Group F vs Italy

Player of the match

For the first time, player of the match awards will be given during the knockout stage. A player of the match award is given to the player deemed as playing the best in each match.
RoundTeamMatchTeamPlayer
Semifinals17–13 Milan Glušac
Semifinals12–15 Krisztián Manhercz
Third place game5–12 Konstantinos Kakaris
Final10–7 Dušan Mandić

Notable statistics

  • Most goals in a game: 39
  • Least goals in a game: 17
  • Most goals by a team in a game: 28
  • Least goals by a team in a game: 3
  • Biggest goal difference in a game: 25
  • Biggest half time deficit in a game: 12
  • Most goals scored by a player in a game: 7

Controversies

Schedule change

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. 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:

Maltese match-fixing scandal

On 16 January 2026, players from Malta were accused of placing bets on their own games. Around four players are being suspected, with the match against Montenegro being investigated particularly. Speaking about the situation, Karl Izzo, president of the Aquatic Sports Association of Malta, said the following:

Broadcasting rights

The television channels broadcasting the event is as follows:
TerritoryRights holder
Rest of World