The presence of the fearsome Rahat club of Kazakhstan, according to organizers, guarantees an exciting competition in the meet held every two years and sanctioned by the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC).
"We really expect an exciting competition because 80 percent of the Kazakhstan club players are members of the national team," said Joey San Juan, Philippine Volleyball Federation (PVF) director, during Friday’s SCOOP session at the Padre Faura Kamayan restaurant.
"Defending champion China will be bringing in three national players while Japan and Thailand will have two and one reinforcements each from their respective national teams," San Juan said.
Other countries competing are Chinese-Taipei, Indonesia and host Philippines, which will be seeing action in the event for the first time since 1999.
"We have invited South Korea but it did not reply. Same with North Korea, but it cannot make it due to financial problem. So we have only 140 foreign participants, including six delegates from the AVC," said tournament director Bryan Tabanag who also graced the weekly sports forum sponsored by Accel.
Tournament format is a single-round robin with the top two teams battling for the championship.
Manila Sports Council chairman Ali Atienza, co-chairman of the organizing committee of the tournament, said Manila has offered the San Andres gym as practice venue and allowed the use of the Rizal Memorial Coliseum for free.