FIVB President Wei discusses FIVB Board decisions

Lausanne, Switzerland, April 3, 2009

 

FIVB President Jizhong Wei on Friday discussed decisions made this week at the FIVB Board of Administration concerning limitations on foreign players, the new Olympic Beach Volleyball qualification system and the rule regarding the change from 12 to 14 players.

 

Why has the FIVB gone back on their decision concerning limitations on foreign players?

 

President Wei: “To strictly follow the European Union. In FIFA, the “six plus five” rule is not sure because feedback is not unanimously positive. I have been talking to Presidents of our National Federations. They said, ‘This is a good proposal (to place limitations) but difficult to implement. If we limit foreign players the quality may go down and we will lose the market.’ For this reason we return and we will not compulsorily limit foreign players. We should be realistic. It is good for the future but not now. EU law is one of the key points. We didn’t want to enter in a fight with the European Union.”

 

Will the FIVB rewrite the sports regulations to reflect this decision?

 

President Wei: “It was only a Board decision and not reported in the regulations. We didn’t change the sport regulations. The Congress votes about Constitution matters. Now it is a recommendation to use as many local players as possible – all National Federations are different.”

 

Why has there been a change in the qualifying system for Olympic Beach Volleyball?

 

President Wei: “First I must say the new Beach Volleyball Olympic Games qualifying decision will be sent to IOC for approval. The Olympic Games is about the elite and universality. The former qualifying system did not have complete universality. Africa had little chance to participate. With the new system, we maintain the World Tour ranking system, allowing the best players, and we also give a qualifying quota to each Confederation, so every continent has at least one place. It is elite but also universal, because universality is an IOC principle.”

 

Is the libero rule with 14 players to be implemented for all competitions?

 

President Wei: “We were thinking of having 14 players only for specific competitions and not in general and the rule would be included only in the specific regulations of each of these events. However, we will call a special meeting of our Rules of the Game, Coaching and Refereeing Commissions to examine carefully the issue together with the liberos' mechanism and to report back.”