Earlier this year, he announced that the FIVB, in the course of the last 20 years, had been "too far from the Olympic Movement," adding: "This was not correct. We need to be part of the family, contributing but most of all learning as they are more experienced than us."

As he sat in an executive box within Warsaw's Stadion Narodowy last weekend an hour before the start of the all-singing, all-dancing Opening Ceremony for this year's World Championships, this effervescent character was equally exuberant in espousing the merits of a new, closer relationship with the International Olympic Committee - albeit that volleyball has been on the Olympic programme since 1964, and has been joined by beach volleyball since 1996.

The Stadion Narodowy in Warsaw, with 70,000 inside, awaits the Opening Ceremony of the World Volleyball Championships ahead of Poland's game against Serbia ©Getty Images

"We have to be able to work effectively within the Olympic Movement," he told insidethegames. "Because we stayed out of the Olympic Movement for 25 years. But the relationship is very good now.

"I am honoured now to be one of the experts called to join the International Olympic Committee's Sport For All Commission, which is chaired by Sam Ramsamy.

"I met recently with the President, Thomas Bach, and he was pleased to hear of all the developments within our sport."

By the time Graça spoke, huge screens around the stadium built originally to host matches at the 2012 UEFA European Championship offered those streaming in live television pictures of the Polish team making its way to the match on the coach.

And by the time those players arrived at the field of play, the place was in a ferment. A sell-out crowd of 70,000 - all tickets went by May -  predominantly home fans, awaited them with a sense of anticipation which had been escalated by a sumptuously realised pre-match show, not to mention speeches by Graça and the Polish President, Bronisław Komorowski.

Arriving at the ground, the scenes had been entirely reminiscent of a football match, such was the volume of the crowd, and their predominant garb of team scarves and replica shirts adorned with the names of their favoured players.

The players themselves looked just a little overwhelmed as they waited their turn to enter the arena down a long strip of red carpet, lined with young girls waving silver tinsel pom-poms. Poland has on occasions been referred to as "Volleyball-land", such is the popularity of the sport there, and all their top names were already well acquainted with the trappings of fame - such as having huge versions of their faces on the front of petrol pumps around the country thanks to a link-up with one of their main sponsors.

Poland's head coach Stéphane Antiga gets the star treatment before his side's showpiece match against Serbia last weekend ©Getty Images

But yes, overwhelmed was still the right description. Not that any feelings of uncertainty lasted long on a night when the hosts emphatically defeated an estimable Serbian team 3-0 in the first of many group matches.

"Good evening Warsaw," Graça had announced in his opening address. "What a great atmosphere! No nation welcomes volleyball like you do in Poland.

"Welcome to the opening of the FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship. Over the next 23 days, you will see the best 24 teams in the world. They proudly represent the 148 countries who participated in the qualification system.

Ary Graça, President of the FIVB, makes his speech to a 70,000 crowd in Warsaw before the Opening Ceremony for the Volleyball Men's World Championship gets underway ©Getty Images

"Tonight all eyes of the world are on Warsaw. Tonight, you have already set a new World Championship record. 70,000 fans in the stadium. Unbelievable!"

On the night, everything went as Graça hoped. But he made no secret of the fact that he had gambled, in terms of financial commitment, on laying down a significant marker on this opening day.

In putting on this match in an open-roofed stadium - at least at the start of the night - the FIVB were nodding to the last time a big volleyball match was held in such an arena, the 1983 meeting between Brazil and the USSR at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro which drew a crowd of 95,887 fans.

Asked to compare the two occasions, Graça respond: "It's like an image - Sputnik went to the moon, today you go to the moon much more quickly and more safely. It was a very good idea at that time. But it was a Sputnik. Now we are going to have the same kind of match but with a big show and the public will participate. It's the same thing, but a new concept.

"It's important to say to the world that we are doing something big, something in the new way of thinking.

"For sure, volleyball today is completely different. Our new mentality is to give to the public real entertainment. The match itself is an entertainment, but it's not enough. We must give some show to say to the public that we have a lot of respect for them.

"When I was a candidate for the Presidency the main word I used in my campaign was 'innovation'. It may sound a bit impertinent, to have an old man talking about new things. But this is the reality.

"We learn very much that we must be changing all the time. Every year, everything changes. It's amazing. You cannot stay still, you have to move.

"Young people are teaching us what are the new things to do.

"But of one thing I am sure. This new concept that the FIVB is using now is a big change. I could say, I dare to say, that the FIVB is going to be another FIVB after this World Championship. We are expending a lot of energy and money to give to the Polish people this big show and also to the rest of the world.

The all-singing, all-dancing Opening Ceremony to the World Volleyball Championships in Warsaw ©Getty Images

"It's a mark. Before and after, I'm quite sure of that.

"This is why I'm so proud of saying these things to you because in my time we never imagined such progress. For me, it's completely different. I am very much satisfied with it because everything for me is new so it makes me new too. So I'm starting again, a new life!

"I think that volleyball in the future will be one of the best sports. Why? We have been the best in the London 2012 Games, mainly through beach volleyball. Next we are going to have the Olympics in Brazil, which is, like Poland, a country of volleyball, where it is almost equal to football. And we have the perfect venue for the beach volleyball at Copacabana.

"And then in 2020 we go to Japan, where volleyball is also the second sport - and of course the TV in Japan is very important too.

"So I think it is a new era of volleyball. We have everything to raise a new idea, to do something different for the future. We have talked about selling out tickets in our stadiums. And we are going to do it."

In the course of the last two years, Graça has directed $12 million (£7 million/€9 million) towards worldwide development of the sport - something which has been brought about, predominantly, through the beach volleyball rather than indoor volleyball variant.

"Beach volleyball is much cheaper," he said.

"In South America we have poor countries. What chance do the people there have to go and play volleyball? How are they going to learn the sport? Beach volleyball gives them the chance. You only have two players on each team instead of six, and you can find places to play more easily. It is the same in Africa. And we have seen the results.

"The policy for development has to be that we cannot give people fish, we must teach them to fish. This is the strategy we are using - we give them the net, the ball, the knowledge, and they can play, play, play.

"For the Beijing 2008 Olympics, we have only 31 countries in the qualifying for beach volleyball. For London 2012, with the investment we had made because I was then President of the beach volleyball, that total went up to 123 countries competing to qualify. And now for Rio 2016 we have 195 countries trying to reach qualification.

"Also, for the World Championship in Poland this year we had 146 countries trying to qualify.

"So you can see volleyball is spread all over the world. For the last 15 years there is nothing, and in two years we change everything, in a good sense, in a young sense. With new technology, new understanding. We are 220 federations-strong and we are trying to reach all the countries all over the world."

The television feed for this World Championship is being taken by 102 countries, most of whom are showing it live. Television is the big player, of course - and Graça has recently been in consultation with NBC TV in New York.

"We have followed the advice of the television broadcasters," he says. Which means he has followed the directive generally issued to each and every sport to get a move on for the benefit of the impatient viewer.

Volleyball time-outs have been drastically reduced, and time between points actively reduced. The latest plan is to have just eight seconds from the ball going dead to it being served again.

"In beach volleyball, when the players take the time to clean the ball, it's a lie!" he said. "They are getting their breath back. And all of this adds time without adding to the action, so this is the main point of the eight-second rule."

He is also eager to settle upon a universally recognised technology in order to allow challenges to decisions made during play, commenting:

"As a former President of a national federation, I say this. You cannot have someone invest $4-5 million (£2-3 million/€3-4 million) in a team and you lose the Olympics or the World Championship because of a mistake.

"When it happens in football, certainly it is important for the discussion for the next day. This is very god in the bar. But what about the $4-5 million (£2-3 million/€3-4 million) in the countries, the owners are expending to be champion? This cannot only be in the hands of a referee. Now we are using this technology."

And on the general theme of technology, Graça was also happy to announce the existence in the VIP section of the stadium of a prototype of a volleyball net which could revolutionise not just this sport, but sport in general when it is brought into competition next year.

The net in question has inbuilt LED lighting capable of mounting any kind of display, ranging from an atmospheric "Great spike!" to statistical information or, of course, commercial details.

The prototype LED lighting net which Ary Graça hopes will help revolutionise the infield options for volleyball - and other sports ©Getty Images

"Over the next few months it will be taken into completion and the Federation will begin to work out the rules of when the net is used as a presentation for the sport, and when it is used in a commercial way," said Michael Payne, the highly experienced advisor to the FIVB.

But Graça recognises the nature of the challenge that faces the sport, given its spikes of popularity in places such as Japan, Brazil and Poland.

Earlier this year, the President pointed out that 90 per cent of the FIVB revenue came from just five territories. Asked if this presented a challenge in terms of achieving global popularity, he concurred.

Volleyball is massively popular in Poland - but as President Graça acknowledges, the sport needs to spread more evenly around the world ©Getty Images

"Five countries is not enough," he said. "The markets in places like Japan, Brazil and Poland are very important, but we need to say to the world that this is a sport for all countries. We took a risk on the expenditure here to make a spectacle to show to the world. What we have here is a step into the future.

"The world must come with us. This is a message to the world. If you don't have the capacity to do a show like this, then don't bid for the next World Volleyball Championship. It's going to be this way from now on."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play - the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £8.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.