'Open' yet closed conference: PVL to resume late this year without fans
MANILA, Philippines – The Premier Volleyball League has decided to move its plan of holding its Open Conference from September to late this year with the National Capital Region still under general community quarantine.
And it will be behind closed doors.
“Hopefully, we will be able to do something before the end of the year,” said organizing Sports Vision president Ricky Palou in the Crossover podcast Tuesday night.
“What we’re hoping for, what we’re asking teams to do is to keep their players in shape,” he added.
PVL was originally penciled to unfurl on May 30 but the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to reset in September, which eventually did not work out too since the National Capital Region remained under general community quarantine.
If allowed to finally start, Palou said it would be without fans.
“I think if we’re able to hold a tournament this year, it will probably be closed-door, no audience,” said Palou. “I don’t know how teams will react to that, how they will play with no audience watching but I hope they’ll be mature enough to play and give it their all.
“After that, slowly probably they will allow us to bring in some audience, people to watch but again, they’ll probably observe social distancing and be seated one every other seat,” he added.
Meanwhile, the PVL will hold an online fan’s day before it opens shop.
Alyssa Valdez and a powerhouse Creamline team remained the team to beat this early after retaining the core of the same group that reigned supreme in last year’s Open Conference.
Also seeing action are PetroGazz, last year’s Reinforced Conference Champion, BanKo-Perlas, Motolite, Choco Mucho, Army, Bali Pure, Chef’s Classic and Air Force.
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