Belgrade Hosts 2027 Water Polo Champions League Final Four

The “11 April” Sports Center in New Belgrade was packed to the last row earlier this year when it hosted the European Water Polo Championship. Now the same pool is getting another big assignment. Less than a year and a half later, in May 2027, it will once again become the center of European water polo, this time at club level, bringing together the continent’s best teams in one place.

European Aquatics (LEN) announced that Belgrade will host the Champions League Final Four for the 2026/27 water polo season from May 12 to 15, 2027, again at the “11 April” Sports Center. Eight teams will take part, four men’s and four women’s, following the joint final tournament format introduced last season in Malta in June.

LEN president Antonio Silva said Belgrade had once again submitted a fantastic bid.

We are delighted to return to this wonderful city, which hosted an unforgettable European Water Polo Championship this year, as well as the European Aquatics Championships in 2024. The joint final tournaments in the women’s and men’s competitions, held in June in Malta, were a huge success, and there was strong agreement among all stakeholders that this format should continue.

Silva made the statement in a LEN release, adding that the format in which men and women play their finals at the same venue and on the same days is here to stay, since Malta proved to be a hit with everyone involved in organizing it.

This will not be Belgrade’s first brush with the Champions League Final Four. The city has already hosted the finale of the elite club competition in 2021, 2022 and 2023, three years running, which makes May 2027 the fourth time the continent’s best teams will fight for the trophy in the Serbian capital. Few cities in Europe can boast such a run in water polo, and LEN clearly likes returning to proven ground.

The timing is no coincidence for water polo alone. The tournament’s final day, May 15, 2027, coincides with the opening of the specialized Expo 2027 exhibition in Belgrade, meaning the city will be welcoming sports teams from across Europe and the exhibition’s first guests at the same time. For organizers, that is an extra reason for Belgrade to be on the map those days, and not only the sporting one.

For domestic water polo, the story also has a concrete sporting backdrop tied to qualification, not just the final weekend. Reigning Serbian champion Radnicki of Kragujevac earned a direct spot in the group stage of the new Champions League season, without qualifiers, as a reward for last season’s title. Novi Beograd has no such luck and must first get through a qualifying round. Waiting there are Oradea, Spandau and Strasbourg, three teams that will be no easy task, with the round played from September 18 to 20, already next week. The group stage draw is scheduled for September 21, the day after it is known which club has advanced.

The reigning European champion is Barceloneta, the club defending the title it won last season and set to be the main favorite again on the road to the Belgrade Final Four. Until the groups and qualifying pairings are known, one thing is clear: in May 2027 the “11 April” Sports Center will once again be the venue that decides who is the best club in European water polo. The first real news on who is fighting for that spot arrives as early as September 18, when Novi Beograd takes to the water against one of those three teams.