PSL defers pro move
The Philippine Superliga (PSL) will turn professional — but not now.
Speaking at the latest edition of The Athletes’ Tribune, PSL president Ian Laurel said they opt to remain as an amateur league so they can help collegiate players and military athletes realize their dream of playing for the national team.
The PSL has been supplying players to the Larong Volleyball ng Pilipinas Inc. in bigtime tournaments like the Southeast Asian Games, Asian Games and various events of the International Volleyball Federation.
I think we don’t have yet enough volleyball players in the country.
Laurel explained that should they decide to turn professional, players from the University Athletic Association and National Collegiate Athletic Association and those serving the Armed Forces of the Philippines would be barred from seeing action, prompting them to miss their chances to play for the national squad.
Another drawback of turning professional is the availability of players.
So far, PSL teams have at least four collegiate players in their respective rosters. Some of those players also have careers outside volleyball like teaching, modeling, coaching, online selling and corporate jobs.
Laurel said removing those players from the rosters would surely create a dearth of talent in their program.
“I think we don’t have yet enough volleyball players in the country,” Laurel said during the weekly sports show of Daily Tribune late Monday.
“The only time that I can think that we can have purely graduated players is if the two leagues, the PSL and PVL (Premier Volleyball League), would merge. If that happens, then we can have four teams each composed of purely graduated players.”
But the dream of turning pro, which started as early as 2018, is not yet completely dead.
Laurel said they are slowly moving to that direction and expect to finish the process by 2022.
“We had a strategic planning session in 2018 and turning pro was one of the topics that was discussed,” he said.
“And what we did was to gradually remove college players from the lineup. I hope two years from now, we can complete the process and all teams would have a roster composed of graduated players. After all, volleyball couldn’t be compared to basketball where talents are overflowing.”
The PSL was set to return with a beach volleyball tournament last month after getting clearance from the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).
But with the country being hammered by a series of typhoons, the league decided to call it off and move the conference to next year.
Laurel stressed that they are already finalizing their calendar for 2021.
“We would decide if we want to put the beach volley or AllFilipino first and the Grand Prix later,” Laurel said.