There are three confederation zonal competitions. The winner of each competition competed in second round. Because Macau, New Zealand and Tonga later withdrew, North Korea and Fiji automatically qualified for the second round.
The top seven ranked teams from FIVB World Ranking as of 1 January 2015 qualified automatically for this round. The top six ranked teams seeded by the serpentine system. The other four teams were drawn.
India was initially chosen as the host country for the event. However, due to internal problems with the Volleyball Federation of India, the Asian Volleyball Confederation decided to shift the competition venue from India to Male in the Maldives. [2] The AVC informed all the participating teams in the tournament that if they wanted to compete in the event, they had to reconfirm their participation to the AVC and the Volleyball Association of Maldives by December 31. [3] Maldives, Nepal, and Iran confirmed their participation and played in Malé January 27-29, 2017. [4][5][6]