Imoco
After Diatec Trentino President, Diego Mosna, proposed Men’s Italian League, the organization on whose helm he has been until recently, to withdraw all clubs from European Cups for one season (didn’t happen after all), head of Women’s Italian League, Mauro Fabris, plans to do the same in regard to the clubs under this organization. But, he stated he might suggest this kind of boycott for 2018/19, not this season.
The Drawing of Lots for the 2018 CEV Champions League and CEV Cup has involved four Italian Women’s clubs (two in each tournament), but Fabris is not satisfied, just like Mosna, with the treatment they have by the CEV and FIVB as well as by the national federaton.
„We are again facing an international timetable that is likely to affect the activity of our Serie A1, which is considered a top in the world. Specifically, it forces Imoco Volley Conegliano, vice-champions of Europe and also the organizers of the last Final Four, to play two qualifying rounds, or four games, between October and November, to enter the Main Stage which it’s absolutely unacceptable. Moreover, it happens in favor of teams that have never played in the Champions League or have the merit of belonging to federations that inexplicably have a better ranking than the Italian one,“ Fabris said.
Fabris
He considers a fact that Women’s Serie A continues to have only one assured participant in the Main Stage (Igor Gorgonzola Novara) of the Champions League, despite female clubs from his country participated four times in the Final Four in the past five years, highly unacceptable.
As for the international timetable, Fabris revealed he got guarantees from the CEV that Champions League Final Four will not again overlap with female Serie A1 playoffs, but the agreement wasn’t respected, criticiazing CEV for planning to announce Champions League Main Stage calendar only in November while Women’s Serie A1 schedule has already been set.
As for the FIVB, Fabris is not satidfied with the fact that Italian clubs will have to release their players to the North American and Central American championships in October, exactly when Italian League is scheduled to start.
So, in order to defend Italian clubs who invest a lot of money, before the start of the 2017/18 season, Italian Women’s League will decide which conditions to accept to participate in the European Cups as from the 2018/19 season.
“If these wrong CEV and FIVB attitudes don’t change, I don’t rule out a possibility for Italian clubs not to participate in the European Cups from the 2018/19 season,” Fabris concluded.
See other news from Italy.
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