All 12 teams of the Premier Volleyball League have agreed to move the start of the 2021 Open Conference to the late second quarter or early third quarter of the year.
In a meeting with league officials — headed by president Ricky Palou — the attendees decided that the teams needed more time to train heading into the tournament.
Teams have stopped training due to the NCR-plus bubble entering enhanced community quarantine during the first two weeks of April before going to modified ECQ from April 12 to 30.
“We have agreed to move the PVL opening to either last week of June or the first week of July,” said Palou.
“We decided to do this to give ample time for the teams to train as a team, as the training of the teams was disrupted when the government agencies agreed to place NCR, Laguna, Rizal, Cavite, and Bulacan under ECQ and now MECQ.”
Palou also revealed that the league is also looking at other provinces like Subic as host of the tournament, in case Laguna is still under MECQ by then.
The Open Conference should have opened its curtains during the last week of May.
The Games and Amusements Board have suspended batch trainings last March 29.
Creamline, Choco Mucho, and Perlas were already training in Ronac Shaw Boulevard. Meanwhile, Petro Gazz was holding their sessions at the Filoil Flying V Centre.
Over in Quezon City, BaliPure (RIM Sports) and UAC (SGS) were about to start their trainings.
Sister teams PLDT and Cignal had the San Sebastian College Gym and Paco Arena as their home base. Sta. Lucia and Chery Tiggo, on the other hand, held their sessions in Rizal and Subic, respectively.
F2 Logistics has yet to find a place to train.