Aurélie Sacchelli, Media365, published on Friday October 11, 2024 at 9:50 a.m.
L’Equipe informs us this Friday that the leaders of the National Volleyball League have noted the fact that there will be no descent into the Marmara SpikeLigue or League B at the end of this season.
The French men’s team is the reigning double Olympic champion. Earvin Ngapeth, one of the best players in history, returned to the French championship this summer. Despite everything, the Marmara SpikeLigue de volleyball experienced some problems this summer, with the judicial liquidation of Nantes-Rezé, quarter-finalist of the championship last season, and the refusal of commitment from Ajaccio, which had requested a wild card . So much so that the championship takes place with only thirteen teams, and therefore one exempt club each day. Thirteen teams who will not have to worry about potential relegation, since the National Volleyball League has decided that there will be no descents at the end of the 2024-25 seasonlet it be known The Team this Friday. The decision was taken almost unanimously, with 23 votes for and only 2 against, those of François Bruneau, the president of Tours, and Philippe Peeters, the boss of Levallois Paris SC. The decision also concerns League B, whose season will resume this weekend, with ten clubs, including France Avenir 2024 (or National Volleyball Center), a team based in Hérault, made up of the best French players under 21 years old, and often used to the last places.
Soon 40 professional clubs?
To date, there are 35 professional clubs in France (13 in Marmara SpikeLigue, 9 in Ligue B and 13 in Saforelle Power 6, the new name of the French women’s championship). But the new president of the LNV, Jean Azéma, wants to soon increase it to 40. “In recent years, it seems that we have lost sight of the fact that the LNV’s mission is to ensure the promotion of professional volleyball, and therefore to “to encourage other clubs to embark on the adventure of professionalism,” he assures in an interview on the LNV C website.It is not by reducing the number of clubs that we will increase the visibility of professional volleyball, and I am not nostalgic for the 70s and 80s when around ten clubs, always the same, competed for the title! Men’s professional handball has 31 clubs, including 16 in D1, and basketball has 38 clubs, including 18 in D1. Men’s professional volleyball has 22 clubs, including 13 in D1, and if we filled the capacity granted by the FFV/LNV convention, we would have 27 clubs. So, why not 40 professional clubs in LNV? I know, people will tell me that the budgets are not comparable. (…) I am willing to hear that there is an economy of volleyball which is not comparable to those of other sports, but I tell myself that the sporting context is very favorable to volleyball and that we must surf on the wave of the two Olympic titles for the French team.” A great challenge in perspective.
