36 national teams will race for VNL honours from 4 June to 3 August
- VNL 2025 to be played with 18 teams per gender for the first time
- The teams are split into three pools of six for every competition week of the Preliminary Phase
- Women’s VNL gold medal showdown to be played on 27 July, the men’s final on 3 August
2025 will offer the seventh edition of the annual Volleyball Nations League, which will also be the first one with an expanded line-up of 18 national teams per gender, following the introduction of a new format aiming to enhance the VNL experience for athletes, fans, host cities and all other stakeholders alike. The goal is to ensure the VNL continues to be a spectacular top-calibre competition sparking volleyball fever across the world.
As usual, the VNL will take place at the beginning of the national team season, with the first games to be played on 4 June and the last – on 3 August.
To expand the number of teams, none of the participants in the 2024 edition were relegated, while the 2024 Volleyball Challenger Cup winner and the world’s highest-ranked team in each gender earned the right to join VNL 2025. For the first time, the participants are no longer divided into core and challenger teams, which means that whoever takes the bottom 18th place in the competition’s final standings in each gender will be relegated, to be replaced by the respective highest-ranked team (not yet qualified) for the following VNL season.
With the expanded number of participating teams, there will be a new structure of the Preliminary Phase schedule. Each participating team will still play 12 matches spread across three competition weeks. However, now there will be three pools per week played at three different venues with six teams each. The number of competition days will be reduced from six to five per week. The players will also benefit from an additional week of rest. There will be no VNL competition for either gender during the week after the second competition week in the men’s tournament.
In this new format, a total of 216 matches will take place during the Preliminary Phase, which brings the total number of games per season to 232, including the quarterfinals, the semifinals and the medal matches in both genders. There will be no change in the format of the Final Rounds.
The women’s VNL 2024 final in Bangkok
Women’s Volleyball Nations League 2025
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