PVL plans to launch first pro season in April

PVL game between Choco Mucho and BanKo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Premier Volleyball League is looking to launch its first professional season on April 10 but it needed a few adjustments from the organizers to pick the most suitable date to have the league return.

Ricky Palou, Sports Vision Management Group Inc. president, said he and his group initially picked February as the start month of the league’s first professional season but they ultimately decided to push it back a few more months.

The country will be hosting the 2021 Fiba Asia Cup qualifiers in Clark, Pampanga in February and they didn’t want to compete for the viewing public’s attention.

March was also out of the question as the Holy Week would be commemorated on that month.

“April 10 is the date we’re looking for because there’s an international tournament happening in February so we won’t compete with that,” said Palou Saturday. “We looked at March but it’s the Holy Week so we’ll take a break for one week.”

“We eventually decided to go for April, right after Holy Week.”

Palou added that the games will be held in a bubble environment, preferably at Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba, and securing vaccines for the players remains an option.

“If we can then why not? If we can get the vaccines, then we’ll have less chances of getting the virus,” said Palou. “They say that tit’ll be available by March. If it’s available, then we’ll give the players.”

With the league transitioning to a professional status, players will have to secure the necessary licenses from the Games and Amusements Board and Palou said he’s talking with the government agency to propose new ways to secure the documents.

Under normal circumstances, an athlete will have to go to the GAB office in Makati but Palou fears that would cause too much physical interaction so he proposed to have the agency’s personnel to visit the teams during the practices.

Palou is also looking at the prospect of having an online application set up to terminate physical interaction and maintain social distancing.