Julio-Velasco
„It bothers me a lot, which in football is not allowed, that Brazil can use Leal who has already played for Cuba, that Poland have León or Juantorena plays for Italy. It seems unsportsmanlike. If someone else wants to do it, I will not. I’m not saying anything about players like Zaytsev, Travica o Łasko, they are culturally Italians, They have finished schools in Italy and have not represented another country. And this usually occurs with players from poorer to richer national teams, it’s never the other way around,“ Argentina men’s national team head coach Julio Velasco stated for TyC Sports.
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I’m from Poland and honestly I need to say that he’s right. But if it’s legal, why these countries don’t have to call these players?
Can this be considered racism? He only spoke about cuban players who chose to make money for their families and their future.
Nationalism won’t feed mouths, put roofs over their heads and provide education for their family members. Is it hard to understand?
Volleyball is not even a well-paying sports like basketball, football, soccer and baseball. They have no other choice but to defect. Some still have the olympic dream. Why choose to supress that when those players are only victims of circumstances.
Re: @rivers
He doesn’t say that they shouldn’t play in club teams. National teams are different and countries shouldn’t transfer players from other countries, it shouldn’t be allowed by FIVB because it is not fair and it is against the logic behind ‘national teams’. If the US didn’t impose economic sanctions on cuba, we wouldn’t hear these sad stories.
Italy’s women volleyball team has done this twice, with Aguero and Costagrande. Both of them brought Italy’s only success in both 2007 and 2011 World Cup, and European championship 2007 edition and 2009 edition, which Italy had never won prior to their coming and after their departure of the team.
Italy’s men volleyball team has greatly increase their performance, since Juantorena came. Although change coaching staff might have been a greater factor for recent success for the Italian team, they have went up one place in the Olympic podium (Bronze to Silver), world cup from 4th place to 2nd (and qualified for Olympics).
I don’t know does this show any significant in changing nationality affects the ‘fairness’ of the international competition, but it seemed to have help both the Italian men and women’s team to gain their performance.
‘ If the US didn’t impose economic sanctions on Cuba, we wouldn’t hear these sad stories.’ To answer this question, part of the problem may have been USA’s implementation of economic sanctions, but the main issue was Cuban volleyball association didn’t let players to play outside of their country. ‘But, the old rules have remained in a new time. Cuban players did not need to deflect anymore (some still continued to do so) but were not allowed to play for the national team if go overseas. ‘
“The team won 400,000 U.S. dollars but our government only gave us 32,000. We had to split that money with all coaching staff members and to all the players,” Herrera said
https://www.worldofvolley.com/News/Latest_news/NORCECA/78832/cuba—sad-fate-of-big-volleyball-nation-from-the-golden-90s-to-prison-sentences.html