2025 AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup

The 2025 AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup was the first of the newly rebranded AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup, and sixth overall edition of the formerly known AVC Men's Challenge Cup, an annual international volleyball tournament organised by the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) with Bahrain Volleyball Association (BVA). It was held from 17 to 24 June 2025 in Manama, Bahrain.^[1]

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, the champions of this tournament qualified for the 2026 Asian Championship.^[2]

Host Bahrain won their first title after defeating the Pakistan in the final.^[3] This was Pakistan's second consecutive defeat in the final of the tournament.^[4] Qatar beat South Korea in the 3rd place match and took the bronze medal.^[5] Mohamed Abdulla Yaqoob was named as the MVP of the tournament.^[6]

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.^[7]

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

Following AVC regulations, a maximum of 12 teams for the next AVC Nations Cup were selected through the following criteria:^[1]

• 1 team for the host country
• 6 other top-ranked teams from the previous edition (2024)
• 5 other highest-ranked entrant teams in the FIVB Senior World Rankings
  • 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.

 China,  Iran, and  Japan which are part of the 2025 FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League are ineligible to submit entries to this tournament.^[9]

The teams were split into four pools with three teams each. The draw of lots took place on 25 May 2025.^[10]

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 FIVB Senior World Rankings as of 8 January 2025.

Drawing results

1. Total number of victories (matches won, matches lost)
2. 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
3. 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.

• All times are Arabia Standard Time (UTC+03:00).

• All times are Arabia Standard Time (UTC+03:00).

• 2025 AVC Women's Volleyball Nations Cup

• Official website
• 2025 AVC Men's Volleyball Nations Cup at Volleyball World