ALAS Pilipinas Men will represent the Philippines as Cignal in the 2025 Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Men’s Champions League later this year in Japan.
Despite being a regional club tournament, Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) and AVC president Ramon ‘Tats’ Suzara’s request to field the national team as a club under the name of six-time Spikers’ Turf champion Cignal was granted by the confederation.
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Hence, the Champions League will be Alas Pilipinas' first taste of international action this year in the buildup to the 2025 FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championship in September.
Suzara bared plans to shorten the next Spikers’ Turf conference, which features a handful of Alas players, to give ample time for the national team to train together.
“The reason for this is that I have requested AVC that for the Champions League, which is a club competition, we will be represented by Cignal, but with the men’s national team,” said Suzara.
“This is an added exposure for the men’s national team (before) having some training camps in Europe after Japan and a pocket tournament with 100 days to go (before the World Championship)."
The concurrent AVC and PNVF chief added, “This is part of the strengthening of our men’s national team. Competitions like the Champions League, the Challenge Cup, and the SEA V.League, these are three important competitions [to prepare] for the World Championship.”
Various roster iterations from the current national team pool will be fielded in these three regional tournaments to decide which players will make the World Championship squad.
Suzara aims to complete the final Alas Men roster by September just before the tournament proper.
Meanwhile, the 2024-25 PVL All-Filipino Conference champion team will be the Philippines' entrant to the women's edition of the AVC Champions League in Korea.
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