Indian Volleyball

All other sports such as squash, badminton,volleyball, atheletics etc which are not covered by any other forum heading can be entered in this forum

Moderator: Moderators

Prashant
Member
Member
Posts: 2813
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 3:48 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: Houston TX

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by Prashant »

jayakris wrote:I used to say, "death, taxes and Indian volleyball losing to Iran" as the absolute certainties in life. I guess I should drop that line now.
Perhaps you could amend the line: "death, taxes and Indian volleyball losing to Iran's A team".
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by jayakris »

Boy... Three years since we touched this thread...

But sadly, it has been pretty much a long period of lost time for Indian volleyball. I don't know where to start and where to end. The gist is that we remained disqualified (or derecognized) by the international body (FIVB) and the Asian body (AVC) for a while, because of a long fight that has been going on between two jack-asses, Federation President Avadesh Kumar and secretary Ramavatar Singh Jhakar. These two jokers killed Indian volleyball during the last 2 years with the infighting and court cases against the elections etc. Anyway, as of a couple of weeks ago, it seems the fight ended with Avadesh losing to Jhakar after some arbitration or whatever by FIVB. It looks like we will elect a president tomorrow and VFI will be functioning again. VFI looking to get back on track

Meanwhile our national team has not played any international events in 2 years. They still have a #30 ranking but has fallen to 9th in Asia. But I think we will fall way down from there too, as I think whatever points we had earlier will now will fall off. We were ineligible and missed the biennial Asian Volleyball championship last month (Pakistan got to play there instead of us!).

Gone are the days when we were top-25 and around top-5 in Asia at the senior level, but much higher within top-10 or 15 in the world, at the u19 and u23 levels, regularly playing world final-16s. Remember us playing Brazil, Russia etc at Pune for the world junior championships several years ago and reaching the QFs etc?... Now our junior teams are ranked below 50 with no points, as they haven't played. Nobody even knows who our best players are. We did have a decent team before, and maybe they will get back together. It will be a long climb back up for us. Oh well...
sameerph
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 32794
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:26 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: MUMBAI
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 11 times

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by sameerph »

Oh dear, thanks Jay. I was wondering what had happened to our volleyball team as not heard much about them in last couple of years. So, it seems this has gone the same as our boxing federation mess. Our boxing seems to be getting back on track shortly after the mess was sorted out. Hope the same happens for volleyball.
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by jayakris »

The latest on the Volleyball Federation of India election mess, after the AGM that was held today in Chennai: Volleyball Federation of India names an ad hoc president (The Hindu) ... Rathin Roy Choudhary of West bengal will be the ad-hoc president until Feb 28, 2018 when the Delhi HC is supposed to pass its order on the validity of S. Vasudevan as the president (but the court has validated the elections to all other posts in April). It seems FIVB has still not removed the ban on us. This election of an appointment of an ad-hoc president was in an attempt to get FIVB to relent and lift the provisional suspension of our federation, but I suspect the may not agree to, and they will wait till next March to see if the HC validates the earlier election of S. Vasudevan. But FIVB agrees with the rest of the elected officials, so the VFI is functioning again, for organizing the national events etc that had been in trouble for a while. But we still cannot take part in international events until India's provisional suspension is lifted. Jeez, what a mess!

Meanwhile - based on a Deccan Herald story yesterday, there is a Chennai HC case against earlier VFI secretary Ramavtar Jhakar (who is currently the winner of the 2 year tussle against ex president Avadesh Kumar) has been adjourned to TuesdayNov 7th by the judge - Volleyball fed official moves Madras High Court on misappropriation of funds ... I don't know if this case has legs, but CBI hasn't filed any case in 15 months since it was filed, but we need to see if the judge directs them to. Who knows!
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by jayakris »

We had the volleyball nationals in Kozhikkod, Kerala for the last few days. Kerala won the men's final and Railways won the women's. There were well over 12,000 people in the stands, they say. I wonder if any volleyball match anywhere ever gets that kind of crowd!

No stopping Kerala men, Railways women
ornatebrute
Member
Member
Posts: 158
Joined: Fri Nov 24, 2017 5:34 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by ornatebrute »

Even a late night district or state match here, in Malpe/Udupi, grabs about 2-3k people minimum
sameerph
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 32794
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:26 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: MUMBAI
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 11 times

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by sameerph »

I think Volleyball is very widely played sport in India. Even in Mumbai I see Volleyball being played a lot. (Probably next to Cricket).

Sad that we cannot convert this into international success.
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by jayakris »

sameerph wrote: Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:34 amEven in Mumbai I see Volleyball being played a lot. (Probably next to Cricket).
Haha, every now and then I like to call attention to the "even," just to confuse everybody. For the record, Sameer used "even" correctly here (I think!) - because anything other than cricket is considered to be not significant in Mumbai :) ... Otherwise, it would be "In Mumbai also".

Back to the point, yes, volleyball is much more popular than it would seem from newspaper reports which give the sport no relevance. But the federations, and not just in India, have always seemed to have trouble selling the game for money and media exposure. I just don't know why. It is even worse in India now, because the Federation sucks very badly, due to uncertainty with the court procedings and FIVB recognition.
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by jayakris »

Looks like FIVB has lifted the sanction on Indian volleyball. VFI run by Ramavtar Jhakar seems to be the federation in charge now.
https://volleymob.com/fivb-lifts-suspen ... -of-india/

I said "looks like" there, because you never know when it is back to problems again, because the other faction of politicians are not going to give up easily. See this from last week - Suspension ends but threat of another ban looms over Volleyball Federation of India (Hindustan Times)

Jay
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by jayakris »

Pro Volleyball is also starting. Kochi & Jaipur to host Volley league

Is Rathore nothing but a politician? Jaipur for this? Why???
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by jayakris »

The FIVB ban seems to have been lifted, and we did finally play after quite some time as a national team. Our u20 team was there at the Asian u20 championships in Bahrain. Everything seems back to normal, and to prove that we lost to Iran (as death, taxes and India losing to Iran in volleyball are the world's greatest certainties). 23 countries were split into 8 pools. We beat New Zealand 25-22, 25-22, 25-16, and then beat Hong Kong 19-25, 26-24, 27-25, 25-12. In the final-16 knockout round, our luck pitted us against, who else, Iran!! .... 17-25, 14-25, 22-25 loss yesterday. We now play Japan in the placement matches.

Still not sure what the status of the Federation is, though. Here is a very detailed article that is worth reading, if you have the patience to figure out the details. Too messy! -- The curious case of Indian Volleyball and the Federation which runs it
User avatar
kujo
Authors
Authors
Posts: 3040
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by kujo »

In the BRICS games, Indian men won Bronze while the women won silver in Volleyball.

They each beat 1 team ( hosts south africa) in the round robin tournament.
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by jayakris »

Yes, Kujo, or u21 team did finish 3rd in BRICS. I didn't take it all that seriously, because I wasn't sure that China and Russia sent their best teams there. I suspect they didn't. And Brazil didn't send a team, I think. It was basically like an exhibition event, I suppose. But we did take Russia and China to the 5th sets before losing in the 4-team event. So, our men's team did very well. Of course, had we lost to South Africa, I would've been really alarmed. The women's team (which is basically almost a Kerala State team) getting the silver was nice too, but again, beating RSA is probably not a huge deal.

Of course if the best teams were to go, then BRICS games in volleyball would be one of the highest quality volleyballs events anywhere, because Russia, China, Brazil are all top-4 in the world in u21 rankings. India would typically be top-25 but is way under-ranked at #66 now because we have not played events during the FIVB ban period the last couple of years.
User avatar
kujo
Authors
Authors
Posts: 3040
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by kujo »

Yes, I wish this was done at a more serious level - that would help Indian teams / athletes. This looks like a, "build friendships" across these nations kind of tournament....
sameerph
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 32794
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:26 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: MUMBAI
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 11 times

Re: Indian Volleyball

Post by sameerph »

Volleyball league is set to be held in February-

Volleyball Federation of India returns after ban with glitzy Pro Volleyball League

Hope this gives a spur to the sport and our national teams get back up in the rankings soon.
Post Reply