Orion-Doetinchem
The Dutch Men’s Volleyball Cup winners Orion Doetinchem have big problems to find money for their next international game. Namely, the 2018 CEV Challenge Cup bracket paired up Orion and the Russian side Gazprom-Ugra Surgut in the 8th Finals. But, the Dutch representatives are having difficulties to find money for the trip to the 1st leg on January 17.
The 4,000 km long trip to the West Siberia, where Surgut is located, will cost Orion more than 25,000 euros. And they do not have that money at the moment.
“Not traveling to Siberia is not an option. If we don’t go, we’ll get a fine of 20,000 euros from the European Volleyball Confederation (CEV) and we will also be excluded for from competing in Europe for three years. That is a scandalously high fine, but I understand the CEV. Then we shouldn’t have signed up. So now, we are going to do everything to get that money together through individuals and companies. We’ll go around to sponsors with the cap,” Wijnand Geerdink, the Chairman of Orion, said.
“We want to show how much money is being used for our trip. In professional football, this is something that can’t be even imagined, that a club has no money for a European match. But outside of playing football, this is the fate of many top athletes. There is very little money available. A lot of people don’t realize that many of Orion players work full-time jobs to make ends meet at the end of the month. We play with love, but it would be very silly that our top performance against Levski Sofia (in the 16th Finals) is not rewarded. We will do everything we can to make that trip happen,” Orion middle blocker Dik Heusinkveld stated.
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i Understand these dudes, unfortunattely the Dutch Volleyball program in male sector had after 2000 a big downfall, like the Spain one after 2010 when the crisis took them hard, and now Netherlands is a shadow of they were in the 90s Spain from European Champions in 2007 to nothing nowadays. they even struggle to qualify for the European championship, football takes everything. these days.