They will vie for top honor and the lone berth up for grabs for the 2022 FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship.
Suntory Sunbirds, champion from the 2020-21 Japanese V. League Division 1, Nakhon Ratchasima QminC VC, the 2020-21 Thailand League winner, Iran A’s Tehran Peykan, runner-up at the 2021-22 Iran Volleyball Super League, and Iraq B’s South Gas Sports Club are in Pool A, while Pool B comprises Al-Rayyan Sports Club, winner at the 2021-22 Qatari Volleyball League and the 40th Arab Club Championship, Taraz VC from Kazakhstan, Iran B’s Shahdab Yazd, the 2021-22 Iranian Volleyball Super League champion, and Erbil Sport Club from Iraq A.
All participating teams will play pool round-robin preliminaries from May 14 to 16 and after that, will be classified to respective rankings up to their performances in the pool plays.
May 17 is the rest day. The championship resumes the following day in the highly-anticipated quarterfinals, with the Pool winners taking on the fourth-ranked side in the same pool and the second-ranked team pitted against the third-ranked side.
The four winning teams will progress to the semifinals, while the losers will be relegated to classification round for 5th-8th places, asianvolleyball.net reported.
In the previous 21 editions, Iran ruled the roost with 15 titles, followed by Korea (2) and Qatar, Kazakhstan, China and Chinese Taipei one apiece.
The 2020 edition was earlier due to take place in Thailand, but was eventually canceled due to grave concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.