PVL President Ricky Palou revealed that the league is still in talks with Brazilian head coach Jorge Souza de Brito regarding the final composition of the Philippine Women’s National Volleyball Team.
The team will compete in the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Challenge Cup for Women later this month.
Palou said that the league has already formed a pool consisting of 20 players for the AVC Challenge Cup, but is still awaiting De Brito’s input.
“We have a pool of 20 [players]. It’s not yet final because we’re waiting for coach [Jorge Edson Souza] De Brito to give us his inputs into the pool,” said Palou.
“But basically, we came up with a list of 20 players while waiting for De Brito to look at it and see if he wants to make any changes or if he’s satisfied with it,” he added.
Last Sunday, it was announced that the Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) gave the flourishing professional league – headed by Palou, the vice president of the federation – the authority to select, form, and train the women’s national team for international competitions.
Palou said that the league feels honored to have such a prestigious responsibility.
“We are honored that the Philippine National Volleyball Federation gave us the responsibility of handling the national team for women’s [volleyball]. They gave us the coaching staff, and we’re now discussing with the coaching staff who will compose the national team for the women’s,” said Palou.
With the AVC Cup for Women set to commence less than three weeks from now, Palou shared that they will sit down with De Brito as soon as possible to finalize the roster.
“We’ll sit down with De Brito, going to the recommendation of… Actually, this pool was recommended by several coaches. They submitted it, they looked at it, and we submitted it to De Brito for his comments,” said the long-time volleyball official.
“We’re waiting for his reply. We should be getting that in the next few days.”
