Time to pursue growth of Philippine volleyball

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Now it’s official: the newly formed Philippine National Volleyball Federation Inc. (PNVFI) will be the national governing body for volleyball in the country!

This came after the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) has officially recognized the new organization as its member during the 37th World Volleyball Congress held online over the weekend.

One hundred and fifty-five national federations approved the PNVFI’s recognition where 171 votes were cast from a possible 191. Three voted “No”, 13 abstained and 20 votes were not received.

The Congress also voted for the expulsion of the Philippine Volleyball Federation (PVF) from the FIVB membership as the country’s national federation where 138 voted “Yes”, 16 voted “No”, 15 abstained and 22 votes were not received.

PNVFI President “Tats” Suzara thanked the FIVB and its members for their support. “We now proudly banner the honour and the responsibility of being affiliated to both the international federation and the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC),” said Suzara.

“Now our work begins to fulfil our singular commitment to all stakeholders. At PNVFI, we serve a volleyball.” The POC organized the elections last month in compliance with the FIVB request to unify the association.

Suzara was named the PNVFI’s founding president after getting all the votes of the 31 people who participated in the inaugural polls.

The federation has prepared a 10-point goal strategy to strengthen the sport in the country. Suzara said the agenda touches issues from the grassroots up to the elite level, including making volleyball the number one family sport entertainment in the Philippines.

“We want to touch these points one by one for the growth of Philippine volleyball,” said Suzara. Among the highlights of the 10-point strategy is to form a federation-owned national league similar to the ones in Thailand.

Having a national league would gather some of the best teams across the country. “Here, there’s no PSL, PVL, UAAP because we have lots of leagues.

However, we don’t have a national league,” Suzara said, adding that he would propose to the board to call it a PNFVI Champions League. Beefing up the national team by hiring Brazilian coaches is also part of PNVFI’s program.

“They will bring up their technology here that would benefit not only the athletes but also the local coaches as well,” Suzara said. Bringing back world-class events, as well as age-group tournaments is also important.

“We used to host these events, from FIVB to AVC tournaments… And we used to have a national junior team that we send abroad to tournaments,” said Suzara.