The 2025 AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup was the first of the newly rebranded

AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup The AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup (previously known as the AVC Men's Challenge Cup), is an annual international volleyball competition in Asia and Oceania contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Asian Volleyball Confede ...

, and sixth overall edition of the formerly known AVC Men's Challenge Cup, an annual international

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

tournament organised by the

Asian Volleyball Confederation The Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) is one of five continental bodies of governance in volleyball. It governs indoor volleyball, beach volleyball and other disciplines in Asia and Oceania, excluding the transcontinental countries of Russi ...

(AVC) with Bahrain Volleyball Association (BVA). It was held from 17 to 24 June 2025 in

Manama Manama ( ', Bahrani Arabic, Bahrani pronunciation: ) is the capital and List of cities in Bahrain, largest city of Bahrain, with an approximate population of 297,502 as of 2012. Long an important trading center in the Persian Gulf, Manama is ...

, Bahrain. As the FIVB Volleyball Nations League restructured its format and abolished the Challenger Cup as a direct qualifier to the tournament, this tournament will serve to countries currently not participating in the Nations League to garner world ranking points for a chance to enter the said competition.

Bahrain Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which mak ...

, the champions of this tournament qualified for the 2026 Asian Championship. Host Bahrain won their first title after defeating the

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

in the final. This was Pakistan's second consecutive defeat in the final of the tournament.

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

beat

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

in the 3rd place match and took the bronze medal. Mohamed Abdulla Yaqoob was named as the

MVP MVP most commonly refers to: * Most valuable player, an award, typically for the best performing player in a sport or competition * Minimum viable product, a concept for feature estimating used in business and engineering MVP may also refer to: ...

of the tournament. Suspension of the final match was considered due to security issues arising from the Iranian strikes on Al Udeid Air Base. However the plan was dropped after guarantees from the host country's government and federation.

Host selection

Bahrain is the only country that submitted its bid to host the tournament and AVC was awarded the hosting rights in February 2025.

Qualification

Following AVC regulations, a maximum of 12 teams for the next AVC Nations Cup were selected through the following criteria: * 1 team for the host country * 6 other top-ranked teams from the previous edition (

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

) * 5 other highest-ranked entrant teams in the

FIVB Senior World Rankings The FIVB Senior World Rankings is a ranking system for men's and women's national teams in volleyball. The teams of the member nations of Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), volleyball's world governing body, are ranked based on their ...

** If a team does not have world ranking points, the final decision will be made by AVC in consultation with Volleyball World and the host country. , , and which are part of the 2025 FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League are ineligible to submit entries to this tournament.

Pools composition

The teams were split into four pools with three teams each. The draw of lots took place on 25 May 2025. Teams were seeded in the first position of each pool following the rank of the previous edition, with the host automatically seeded in Pool A and the top teams occupying the remaining slots. All teams not seeded were drawn to take other available positions in the remaining lines, following their position according to their

as of 8 January 2025. ;Drawing results

Venue

Pool standing procedure

# Total number of victories (matches won, matches lost) # In the event of a tie, the following first tiebreaker will apply: The teams will be ranked by the most point gained per match as follows: #* Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 points for the winner, 0 points for the loser #* Match won 3–2: 2 points for the winner, 1 point for the loser #* Match forfeited: 3 points for the winner, 0 points (0–25, 0–25, 0–25) for the loser # If teams are still tied after examining the number of victories and points gained, then the AVC will examine the results in order to break the tie in the following order: #* Set quotient: if two or more teams are tied on the number of points gained, they will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of the number of all set won by the number of all sets lost. #* Points quotient: if the tie persists based on the set quotient, the teams will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of all points scored by the total of points lost during all sets. #* If the tie persists based on the point quotient, the tie will be broken based on the team that won the match of the Round Robin Phase between the tied teams. When the tie in point quotient is between three or more teams, these teams ranked taking into consideration only the matches involving the teams in question.

Squads

Preliminary round

* All times are

Arabia Standard Time UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours ahead of the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Following the ISO 8601 standard, a time with this offset would be writt ...

( UTC+03:00).

Pool A

Pool B

Pool C

Pool D

Final round

* All times are

( UTC+03:00).

9th–11th places

Final eight

Quarterfinals

5th–8th semifinals

Semifinals

7th place match

5th place match

3rd place match

Final

Final standing

Awards

*Most valuable player *: *Best setter *: *Best outside spikers *: *: *Best middle blockers *: *: *Best opposite spiker *: *Best libero *:

Broadcasting rights

Notes

References

External links

*
2025 AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup
at Volleyball World {{DEFAULTSORT:Volleyball Nations Cup, Men, AVC, 2025 AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup 2025 in Bahraini sport International volleyball competitions hosted by Bahrain 2025 in men's volleyball June 2025 sports events in Bahrain