Manila, Philippines, September 26, 2009 – The 18th AVC General Assembly presided by AVC President Dr. Saleh Bin Nasser had its ordinary meeting at Hayatt Hotel in Manila of the Philippines on Sunday and made decisions concerning Asian Volleyball development.

Mr.Andre Meyer, FIVB Executive Vice-president, conveyed FIVB best wishes to AVC on behalf of FIVB President Mr. Wei Jizhong, believing the AVC G/A will be a successful meeting.

The FIVB Executive Vice-president told delegates present at the meeting that FIVB under the Presidency of Mr. Wei Jizhong now has new philosophy and new structures, which means that FIVB put more stresses on Confederations and National Federations.

"That demands more work and more responsibilities to Confederations;.” He stressed. He indicated that Confederations will organize more FIVB events in the future.

He said that “FIVB is to study the possibility to give more market chances to the Confederation.”

Mr. Andre Meyer said “more work will bring more support from FIVB side,” and promised that FIVB will increase financial support to AVC, which will be used mainly “on development of Beach Volleyball, development of referees and development of anti-doping.”

Dr. Ben Nasser welcomed the representatives of the attending AVC members in the congress and asked them to actively participate in the Assembly. The AVC President presented his activity report which was approved with a big applause. He said everything showed all the items of development of Asian volleyball and the Asian Volleyball is developing faster and better.

Mr. Gener Dungo, Vice President of the Philippine Volleyball Federation, expressed warm welcome to the delegates to the Philippines to attend the AVC G/A meeting.

He said that “We plan to have a grand nationwide celebration to commemorate the 100th year of volleyball in our country and truly that the AVC General Assembly and the 15th Asian Senior Men’s  Volleyball Championship will set the tone and get people excited about the sport.”

Mr. Gener Dungo hope the Philippine Volleyball Federation want to lift the image of volleyball and try hard to make people feel the love and passion each and everyone to share for volleyball, hoping to get support and cooperation from AVC and its members.

After fruitful discussion, the AVC General Assembly made the decisions, including:

-- The official launching of AVC Medical Commission, which will be consists of five members from Japan, China, Korea, Bahrain and Thailand with Dr. Yuichiro Hamu from Japan, the member of FIVB Medical Commission, as the Chairman.

-- AVC will conduct the qualification tournament for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games and the 8th Asian Youth Boys and Girls Volleyball Championships will double also as the Youth Olympic Games qualification tournaments.

-- The AVC Competition Manuals developed by AVC Sports Events Council this year to be officially effective as of 2009 for all AVC competitions.

-- To allow international referees to officiate AVC Club Championships and to assign two neutral referees for each competition from the nearby countries.

-- The creation of a beach volleyball ranking system similar to the FIVB world Tour, to train more beach volleyball referees, and to publish a calendar of events to encourage participation.

-- To allocate US$25,000 to countries who need support for equipment through AVC Zonal Vice-Presidents. The Development and Marketing Committee to strengthen AVC Marketing plans.

At the one day meeting, Zonal Executive Vice presidents of AVC five zones and chairmen of six Technical Committees made their annual activity reports, showing that AVC NFs have been working with great zeal and enthusiasm to develop the sport of Volleyball in pursuit of excellence.