PVL to give way for Asian Games preparation

MANILA – The incoming Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Invitational Conference’s schedule of games has been structured to aid the Philippine women’s national team’s preparation for the upcoming Asian Games, its president Ricky Palou said in an interview in Noli Eala’s Power & Play.

“We have to cut the Invitational conference shot because there will be a stint for the national team in the Asian Games. We want them to have enough time to prepare,” said Palou.

“The players don’t have enough time to play together, to train together, so what we’re looking at is giving the national team players more time to practice together and to have tuneup games abroad,” he added. 

“But like I said, normally we have a national team that’s put together one month before international competitions. This isn’t long enough for them to perform well, so in the future, we’re looking at programming this [consistently] to give them more time to work out together.”

The incoming conference, which will be held on June 27 until July 30, will have game days that will feature four individual matchups.

Still, Palou said that they are expecting high-intensity competition from the 11 local teams, three of which are new, and the two foreign squads that are yet to be identified. 

“Three new teams and everybody is waiting to see what kind of team they are going to be, what their line-ups are going to be,” Palou said of the Gerflor Defenders, Farm Fresh Foxies, and the Foton Tornadoes.

He also shed some light on who they have invited as the league’s foreign teams.

“As we did last year, we invited some foreign teams. We invited a team from Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, and even Hong Kong. Right now we’ve gotten confirmation from Japan. We’re still waiting for confirmation from one of the other teams, so we will have a total of 13 teams,” he explained.

After the conclusion of the elimination round is when the foreign teams will see themselves in the mix for the conference’s top prize.

“The local teams will be divided into two brackets, and the top two performers of these two brackets will be entering into the semifinals stage. That’s the stage wherein the foreign teams come in and from there, the top two teams will play in the finals,” said Palou on the format of the conference. 

“We think it’s really going to be an exciting tournament.”