Kathmandu, June 10

Nepal Volleyball Association will be focusing on youth development and national team strengthening in the current fiscal year.

Three weeks after the government declared volleyball as the national sports, the NVA today announced its yearly calendar that includes a total of 27 events. Apart from regular tournaments in and outside the valley, the NVA has added school level tournaments for U-18 players and Inter-college events in both men and women’s sections.

“School and college events are the platforms where we can identify potential players,” said NVA General Secretary Jitendra Bahadur Chand. “We have decided to add these two events in the calendar to strengthen the national team,” he added.

The NVA has also added Mayor Cup in its calendar and Chand said the decision was to attract local administration’s budget into the sport. “We had organised volleyball festival last year including some 10 schools of the valley. That was a huge success and we have decided to organise such event in all the five development regions to create a volleyball-friendly environment across the country,” Chand said.

Chand said the NVA would ask all its associations in 75 districts to organise an event to celebrate Volleyball Day marking the day government declared volleyball as national sports.

Half of the 27 events will be held in Kathmandu valley, while venues for other events are not decided and Chand said the association would inspire districts to organise the events in their respective places using local resources.

“This is a part of decentralisation and we want districts to host the events,” Chand added. He also said that the total estimated budget to complete all the events was Rs 50 million.

Chand said the infrastructure development was the job of the government and the NVA would lobby for that. “We will not make false promise of constructing international-standard covered hall within a year or two. It’s the duty of government to provide us with the land so that we can start the construction works. We have submitted the proposal to the National Sports Council, Ministry of Youth and Sports and Ministry of Finance and we are waiting for their response,” he added. Chand said.

Chand also said the NVA was planning to bring in foreign coach from the Netherlands. “We are in talks with World Volleyball Federation and the Netherlands Volleyball Association and we are hopeful of bringing in the Dutch coach,” said Chand. “If everything goes as planned, the Netherlands coach will arrive in Kathmandu on July 25 and the coach will train our national team for a month,” he added. Chand said the FIVB would provide the coach with the salary and the Netherlands Association will bear the costs for air tickets. “We just need to provide the coach with local hospitality,” Chand added.

NVA President Manoranjan Raman Sharma said the government was positive in providing them with the grantsto develop the National Sport. “It has come to our shoulder now and we need help from all quarters of the society,” he added.