The highly anticipated Nigeria Volleyball League has been scheduled to commence on the 6th of April,2018 with zonal qualification in the six geo-political zones; including a federal zone for military & paramilitary clubs. This decision was reached at a stakeholders meeting in Abuja earlier this year.
According to the President of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation, Engineer Musa Nimrod, this step became necessary because “it became apparent that funding, publicity & professionalism cannot be attained until all the stakeholders come together and start a league.”
The template for the league was revealed by the chairman of the technical committee, Martin Melandi, who mentioned highlighted that clubs will be grouped based on the geo-political locations in the country and clubs in each geo-political zone will decide where to converge for their zonal qualifications. He added that the military & paramilitary clubs which make up the federal zone will use Kwara state as their venue.
Melandi said the round of 16 will comprise of 2 teams from each of the 6 zones and the best 4 teams from the federal zone. The remaining clubs that could not make round 16 will fall into Division 3.
He further explained that the 16 clubs would be grouped into Sahara and Atlantic conferences. “All clubs that emerge from S/W, S/S, S/E zones plus 2 from federal zone will form Atlantic conference while clubs from N/E, N/W, North Central plus 2 from federal zone will constitute Sahara conference.
“The best 4 clubs will emerge from the two conferences each making a total of 8 clubs that will qualify to Premier level while the remaining 8 will form Division 2 and the Division 2 teams will play each other for ranking. The top 8 teams from the two conferences will also play each other for ranking & the best club in the Premier League wins the league for the season,” he said.
The zonal qualification games will be played between the 6th -15th of April at locations chosen by the different zones. While round of 16 conferences will be played between the 25th of May and 3rd of June.
Division 1 ranking stages will take place on the 10th -19th August and with the Premier league final coming up 2 months later between 8th -14th of October.
