With the Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) in place as the country’s accredited national sports association, the Larong Volleyball Pilipinas Inc (LVPI) demanded a refund of its expenses from the sport’s international federation.

LVPI, the formerly accredited volleyball federation in the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), revealed that it paid the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) a total of $80,000 worth of debt incurred by the defunct Philippine Volleyball Federation (PVF) and other expenses, as prerequisite for its formal recognition in 2015.

“The LVPI was able to comply and honor its obligation commensurate to a perfected contract in which we deemed proper to rectify the injustice done to LVPI by FIVB,” wrote LVPI president Joey Romasanta in a letter to the FIVB on May 4, 2021.

“The non-refund of FIVB imposed USD80,000 and the other expenses incurred will further add to the unfairness we  suffered in supporting the programs in upgrading Philippine volleyball as well as AVC and FIVB events.”

The LVPI presented receipts of FIVB receiving the amount and that it was officially recognized as the country’s national sports association in May 12, 2015.

However, the FIVB pushed the POC to supervise an election aimed to combine the squabbling factions in Philippine volleyball, involving the LVPI and PVF.

The elections staged last January resulted in the formation of the PNVF, which is led by president Ramon “Tats” Suzara.

Though the LVPI was amenable to the elections, it sought clarification on the amount paid in 2015.

“While we are amenable to conducting an election within LVPI, if this is a necessary step to FIVB’s  full recognition of our federation, however, LVPI will be unjustly aggrieved if FIVB is in fact withdrawing recognition of LVPI through requiring the conduct of a new election by another volleyball federation in the Philippines to be recognized by FIVB,” wrote Romasanta in a separate letter dated January 12, 2021.

“If this is the case, then we have  no other recourse but to demand the return of our USD 80,000.00 plus the other expenses LVPI  incurred in compliance with FIVB conditions imposed in exchange for LVPI recognition.”

Under the LVPI, the country managed to send a women’s team to the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games from 2015 to 2019, and the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The men’s volleyball team copped a breakthrough SEA Games silver medal, while the men’s and women’s beach volleyball teams won bronze in the country’s staging of the regional biennial meet in 2019. – Rappler.com