The (International Volleyball Federation) FIVB 31st World Congress held in Dubai last June 16-17, 2008 have made a milestone by approving some proposals that will make the game of volleyball quite more interesting. The World Congress is a prestigious event where Executive Committee members and delegates of 200 National Federations will set a plan for a new approach in Volleyball. The agenda contains a wide-range of topics on which important decisions will be made on proposals approved by the Board that will help shape the future of Volleyball.
The 31st FIVB World congress General Assembly have approved some rule changes, including the new Mikasa ball, that we will witness this coming Olympic games. The General Assembly unanimously approved an important change in Volleyball rules of having up to 14 players in a team, with a compulsory of two libero players on the list. This rule change will increase the number of players from 12 to 14, but will NOT allow both liberos on-court at the same time. According to Dr. Acosta, the rule change will be mandatory for all competitions starting from January 1, 2009. However, Volleyball confederations and national federations have the liberty to implement the rule after the Olympic games.
Trivia: What is a Libero?
In 1998 the libero player was introduced internationally, the term meaning free in Italian; the NCAA introduced the libero in 2002. The libero is a player specialized in defensive skills: they must wear a contrasting jersey color from their teammates and cannot block or attack the ball when it is entirely above net height. When the ball is not in play, the libero can replace any back-row player, without prior notice to the officials. His or her replacements also do not count against the substitution limit each team is allowed per set, although NCAA rules only allow the libero to be replaced by the player whom s/he replaced.
The libero may function as a setter only under certain restrictions. If s/he makes an overhand set, s/he must be standing behind (and not stepping on) the 3-meter line; otherwise, the ball cannot be attacked above the net in front of the 3-meter line. An underhand pass is allowed from any part of the court.
Furthermore, a libero is not allowed to serve, according to international rules, with the exception of the NCAA women’s volleyball games, where a 2004 rule change allows the libero to serve, but only in a specific rotation.
taken from WikiAnswers
The Congress also agreed to empower the FIVB board to make the Mikasa MVA 200 as the official game ball during the Olympic games and to decide the immediate use of a lower-pressure game ball in order to increase the length of rallies in a game.
Our local volleyball coaches have just concluded a Volleyball summit with Philippine Volleyball Federation (PVF) to discuss these rule changes that will be applied to all future Volleyball matches.
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There are 5 comments to this entry
Wow! That was a lot of information…
Excited to see the implementation of these changes with the sport.
It’s good to see that volleyball continues to grow and develop! YEY!
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Thanks for appreciating it. All information are found in the FIVB website. It is also good to know that the next FIVB president will be Jizhong Wei, who happens to be the AVC president. It will not be far to think that RP will see again FIVB international sanctioned matches played. As for the meantime, we are contended with our local competitions that becomes more exciting and thrilling to watch. Cheers!
with Jizhong Wei as the next FIVB president, I do hope that Philippines will be chosen as venue for at least a single leg of the World Grand Prix in 2009, similar to the time when the Russsian, Cuban, Brazilian, and Italian teams visited us in the early 2000’s. Those games were then held at the ULTRA.
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Gentleman,
Greetings.It has been an eventful olympic games as far as volleyball is comcerned since we saw the advent/revival of team USA led admirably by the MVP Clayton Stanley on the field and by the genial Kiwi Hugh McCoughteon of the field.Overall it was great for team USA with the men winning gold,the women geting the silver and winning both the men/women gold medals in beach volleyball.
As regards the new rules being contemplated i.e. introduction of two libero’s,increasing the bench strength to eight(totally having fourteen players) and reducing the airpressure and changing the ball,I feel in all probability these changes are going to hurt the puritan’s a lot.The biggest change initiated was the introduction of the rally system of scoring,followed by the introduction of libero,allowing the ball to make contact with the net on serve also have caused enough heartburn for the diehard volleyball fan.It was contemplated at one time to make it discretionary for the first referee to blow the whistle for a net violation/net contact of the block both by the attacker and the blocker.Thank god,that plan has been shelved,otherwise it would led to lot of favouritism/bipartisan attitude.
The introduction of two libero’s to ensure more defence albeit with only one being on the field would defy logic.You have to ensure that both the libero’s are on the field to ensure better defence,as now you have your libeo always playing at the left extreme of the court i.e. zone number five.If the other libero is allowed to play then ,toghether they can cover the court better by dividing the backcourt in to two imaginery halves and leaving one attacker free for back court attaack.As we had seen in the just concluded olympics inspite of the fact that they have reduced the air pressure and also the new ball was played it didn’t effect the pattern of play.The game was not that defencive.Attackers did make a mince meat of the balls set perfectly.
Well,this is my assessment having been a volleyball player myself at the national level for my country India.
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Hmm, you’ve got an interesting point there regarding the two-libero rule. I guess the FIVB didn’t really want a drastic change yet so there should still be just one libero at all times inside the court…