Drawing of Lots defines pool composition for #BeachNationsCup preliminary phase

Teams from across Europe know what their journey to qualify for the CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup Finals 2025 looks like after the Drawing of Lots for the preliminary phase was completed on Tuesday afternoon at the home of European Volleyball in Luxembourg. There will be seven such qualifiers for each gender scheduled for May and June – whose eventual winners will all secure their participation in the Finals slated for July 17-20 in Espinho, Portugal. 

A first draw was performed to define which pool the National Federations applying to deliver a preliminary phase event would be hosting – with Türkiye coming forward with plans to organise as many as two such pools, including a group with no involvement from their side (Pool G). The highest-ranked National Federation from the CEV Country Ranking as of March 3, 2025 was placed at the top of the ‘second’ pool hosted by Türkiye. Subsequent draws were performed after grouping National Federations as per their respective position in the very same CEV Country Ranking. 

The preliminary phase will start on May 13-14 with the first double-gender event in Madrid, Spain, taking place shortly after the men’s Beach Pro Tour Futures organised in the Spanish capital city as well. Heraklion, on the idyllic island of Crete, will be hosting the men’s and women’s Pool F from May 17-18 before Balikesir, Türkiye, delivers two pools in each gender from May 23 to 25. Balikesir is a well-known destination for members of the Beach Volleyball family, since the city has played host to Beach Pro Tour Futures previously as well as to the inaugural Beach Volley European Cup in the fall of 2023. 

The remaining pools will be contested in mid-June in Messina (Italy), Riga (Latvia), and Vilnius (Lithuania), with Messina capitalising on their duties to deliver a Beach Pro Tour double-gender event in June as well. Riga and Vilnius, on the other hand, are popular Beach Volleyball ‘hotspots’ – with multiple international events already organised with much success in the capitals of both Baltic States. 

The last edition of the CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup, an exciting ‘country vs country’ competition introduced in 2022 which resembles the Davis Cup in tennis, was completed in 2024 in Jurmala, Latvia, with France and the Netherlands emerging as the men’s and women’s winners, respectively. 

Apart from the qualifiers for the Nations Cup Finals, two more events have been added to the CEV Beach Volleyball calendar for 2025 – Beach Pro Tour Futures scheduled for September 4-7 in Csopak (Hungary), on the shores of the popular Lake Balaton, and a women’s-only event in Bondues, in the outskirts of Lille, which is due to take place from September 18-21, 2025.