TOKYO (Reuters) – Volleyball regularly features in lists of the world’s top five most popular sports and a rebranded Japanese league is launching its new season later on Friday with the aim of translating that popularity into a global profile.
The opening match in the men’s SV.League will take place when crosstown rivals Osaka Bluteon and Suntory Sunbirds Osaka clash in Tokyo but the ambition of the league is far greater than engaging volleyball fans in Japan’s third largest city.
“We aim to go beyond being just a domestic league, aspiring to lead Asia and become a globally recognised volleyball league that brings innovation to the sport,” said league chairman Masaaki Okawa.
“With a vision for full professionalism by 2027, each club is actively working on enhancing player development, training environments, and operational structures.
“By 2030, the league aims to … become the world’s best league in terms of athletic performance, business operations, and governance.”
The international ambitions will be evident on Friday when Russian former Olympic and world champion Dmitriy Muserskiy and Aleksander Sliwka, a silver medallist with Poland at the Paris Olympics, line up for Suntory.
Across the net playing for Bluteon at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium will be American Thomas Jaeschke, who owns two Olympic bronze medals.
“We are making a history,” Laurent Tillie, Bluteon’s French coach, said on Thursday.
“I think it is the best league in the world.”
All teams, 10 in the men’s league and 14 in the women’s, are allowed two marquee foreign players as well as one non-Japanese player from wider Asia.
Serbian former world champion Sara Lozo will be competing for Saitama Ageo Medics when they open the women’s season against NEC Red Rockets at Kawasaki Todoroki Arena on Saturday.
Rosamaria Montibeller, who helped Brazil to the bronze medal at the Olympics, will turn out for Denso Airybees and is expecting a high level of competition over the seven months of the inaugural SV.League season.
“We have been preparing ourselves well, practising really hard for this new format of the championship, which I am sure will be really competitive this year,” opposite spiker Montibeller said.
(Writing by Nick Mulvenney; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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