Sixteen countries are set to compete in both the men’s and women’s competitions.

Under the new format, beginning from the 2022 VNL, the teams will be divided into two pools of eight and play in a round-robin format.

Each country will play a total of 12 matches in their pool across three weeks, competing in four matches between the Tuesday and Sunday of each week.

The men’s and women’s tournaments will run in alternate weeks.

Eight teams will advance to the final knockout stage, which will now feature eight matches starting from the quarter-finals.

The changes were proposed by Volleyball World - a FIVB vehicle, run in partnership with CVC Capital Partners with the aim of driving growth in the sport.

The FIVB says the new format will allow matches to be held at weekends, reduce travel and enable "longer promotional activities and fan activations in relevant markets."

The VNL will be hosted at 12 different locations, and Volleyball World has invited those interested in hosting preliminary round matches to register their interest, with a bidding process for the VNL Finals to follow once the hosts and dates for the pool fixtures have been confirmed,

The VNL’s inaugural edition came in 2018, replacing the FIVB Volleyball World League.

The 2020 VNL was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in the 2018, 2019 and 2021 editions, countries played each other once in a round-robin preliminary round held across five weeks.

In the first two VNLs, the top six countries advanced to the final round, and were divided into two pools of three from which the top two advanced to the final four, held under a knockout format.

At this year’s tournaments in Rimini in Italy, only the top four advanced to the final round.

Brazil beat Poland in the 2021 men’s final, after Russia had won it in 2018 and 2019, while the United States beat Brazil in the women’s final to clinch their third successive title.