NAIROBI, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Confederation of Africa Volleyball (CAVB) says that only 12 teams will compete in the finals of the Africa Games, which will be held in Casablanca, Morocco in August.
CAVB President Amr Elwani said in a statement on Wednesday that only the cream of the crop will be allowed to send teams to Morocco.
"We will have zonal qualification with the best 12 teams making the finals of the Africa Games," Elwani said.
Unlike in the past tournament, where all the 54 countries and regions were cleared to compete, CAVB is looking for quality and restricting qualification to best seven teams in the zones in each gender.
They will be joined by hosts Morocco, last edition's top three teams as well as two highly ranked sides that will fail to make it through the qualifiers.
"In the volleyball competition, 12 teams will be qualified into the finals of each gender to be divided in the finals into two preliminary pools," said Elwani.
The Africa volleyball governing body president also inspected the facilities in Morocco that will host continent's premier competition and met with Association of National Olympic Committee of Africa (ANOCA) members to check the preparedness of the North African country to stage the games, which will run from August.
Volleyball has been an African Games event since the first edition in 1965.
In beach volleyball, Elwani said 24 teams in each gender will be competing through four pools in the first round followed by the knockout phase starting from the round of 16.
