POL M: Heynen at war with PlusLiga, his request for season shortening denied

Vital-Heynen

Heynen aims for the medal in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games with the Poland National Team. In order to make his players be as most prepared as possible for the event, Belgian expert asked the Polish Volleyball Federation (PZPS) and Polish League (PlusLiga) to shorten the club season by 2-3 weeks. At the moment, the calendar is designed so that the last match of the playoff finals (Game 5) will take place on May 9, while already on May 22 the team will play the first tournament in the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Nations League. In the interview which Heynen gave to Przegląd Sportowy, the Poland National Team head coach appealed for shortening PlusLiga games with a goal to help his players optimally prepare for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

“If the Polish volleyball community doesn’t want the medal of the national team in the Games, then it’s enough to tell me about it and I’ll cope with it alone. If everyone’s talking about a medal, then everyone should devote themselves in some way. If nobody does anything, it will turn out that our biggest rival won’t be opponents in Tokyo, but the entire Polish volleyball,” Heynen said.

The reaction from the country’s volleyball officials came in shortly. The Polish League (PLS) President Paweł Zagumny issued a statement.

“The acceleration of PlusLiga isn’t possible unless we decide that the Polish championship is resolved not by matches, but by a coin toss. The only option to have a chance to accelerate the league at all is the moment of the Champions League semifinals. The question is whether our teams will play in them, which we are counting on,” Polish volleyball legend wrote, adding that PlusLiga calendar was approved on July 22, 2019, and sent to interested parties. He said that at that time there were no objections, neither from the head coach nor PZPS.

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