Pro Volleyball League organisers on Monday that announced that there will be six teams participating in the first edition of the league slated to be held in February.
The league, supported by PV Sindhu, is scheduled to be held from February 2 to 22 in Chennai and Kochi. Ahmedabad Defenders, Calicut Heroes, Chennai Spartans, U Mumba Volley, Hyderabad Black Hawks and Kochi Blue Spikers are the six teams that will take part in it.
Each of the six teams will have 12 players, with one Indian icon player and two Indian U-21 players.
The teams will be fighting it out over a total of 18 matches. Each team will play each other once in a round-robin format and top four teams will qualify for the semi-finals.
Pro Volleyball League CEO Joy Bhattacharya said there will be a draft of foreign players.
“The auction [for the league] will be in December 13 and 14 and Rs 75 lakh is the cap. We will do a draft of foreign players. The idea is to get good international players at a good price,” Bhattacharya told reporters in Mumbai.
“There will be maximum two foreign players in year one [per team] and the reason we are capping it is to keep a control on prices,” he said.
He also said that the matches will be telecast between 7 pm and 9 pm, which is the prime-time, on Sony SIX and SONY TEN 3 channels.
Meanwhile, Luis Alexandre, Director Asia and Oceania of Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), said the league was a step in the right direction.
“We see this [league] quite well. They are trying to develop a nice plan here using six franchises in the first year. We guarantee that we [FIVB] are going to be here and support the league in the beginning and hope they can succeed and make it better in the future,” Alexandre said.
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