Why Volleyball isn't Allowed to Hold Practices Yet?

It's as if Rachel Anne Daquis is telling us to wait for a little longer as volleyball teams aren't allowed to hold practices. Yet.

Last week, the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases has allowed professional football teams and basketball teams such as those playing in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) to hold team practices and conditioning drills as long as certain health protocols are being followed such as limit team practices to only five players and one coach in areas that are currently under the general community quarantine (GCQ). While this is a welcome development especially for PBA fans, not all professional and semi-professional leagues such as the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) aren't included in the list of leagues whose teams are given the go-signal to hold team practices. And among the leagues that aren't allowed to hold team practices is the Philippine SuperLiga (PSL).

So this begs the question: why volleyball leagues such as the PSL aren't allowed to hold practices when volleyball is considered as a non-contact sport?

The Games and Amusement Board (GAB) has a simple explanation to that: PBA and the Philippine Football League (PFL) are leagues that are being regulated by the GAB and that makes the two leagues as the only leagues covered by the IATF's resolution that allow team practices. And like the MPBL, volleyball leagues such as the PSL, which falls under the category of being a commercial league, isn't under the regulation of the GAB and has declined to be supervised by the said regulatory agency.   

The good news is: PSL is said to be just waiting for the IATF's approval to resume team practices too. And while we still need to wait before the actual games happen, this will be good news not just for the PSL but for the whole Philippine volleyball community. 

Photo is from Rappler