Ricky Palou says PVL team owners amenable to salary caps and Draft

With everyone in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL)—the team owners foremost of all—wanting to help women’s volleyball in the long-term, the individual and team salary caps will certainly be in place starting next season, which will also have a new start when the first-ever Draft is held.

“I’ve gotten nothing but positive responses (from team owners),” PVL president Ricky Palou told the Inquirer over the phone Thursday night, minutes after his opinion was sought on Adamson losing a chunk of its nucleus for the coming UAAP with four of its players turning professional. “They want those things put in place to assure longevity of the league.

“I am being bashed by fans (online) ever since that [Inquirer report last June 16] came out,” he said. “But I did the rounds and the owners like it.”

Those safeguards will also make sure that the sport is taken care of for the long term.

Adamson took a hit on Thursday when Trisha Tubu joined Kate Santiago and two other Lady Falcons in signing with new team Farm Fresh and joining their former coach, Jerry Yee, there, just days before the new PVL season gets off the ground with the Invitational Conference.

Yee was released by Adamson last week after he accepted the job to handle the Foxies, whose biggest land to date is Tubu, the 22-year-old who had an impressive rookie season last year where she helped the Lady Falcons make the Final Four for the first time in nine years.

Top offensive weapon

Trisha Tubu (right) and Faith Nisperos are among the stars of the last UAAP season making the jump to the pros. —UAAP PHOTO

Tubu was the Lady Falcons’ top gunner and Season 85’s fifth-best scorer after tallying 203 points built on 176 spikes. She also had 21 blocks and eight aces in the elimination round. She also ranked fourth in the Best Opposite Spiker race and 14th in the Most Valuable Player (MVP) rankings.

“Those are things that we don’t want to happen anymore (in the future),” Palou said as he reiterated that guidelines set in the Draft will make sure that there are no premature graduations from the collegiate ranks.

Santiago was Adamson’s top bet for the MVP as she was eighth in the race with 62.1 statistical points.

With Tubu and Santiago are middle blocker Ckyle Tagsip and libero Cae Lazo, joining hands with the core of College of Saint Benilde led by Gayle Pascual, Jade Gentapa and Cloanne Mondoñedo as well as former Ateneo middle blockers Joan Narit and Pia Ildefonso.

The Foxies have announced the signing of Lazo but have yet to officially welcome Tubu, Santiago and Tagsip.

Adamson is expected to lose more as Inquirer sources, who talked on condition that they are not identified, bared that team captain Louie Romero has had a change of heart and will no longer return to the Lady Falcons for another playing year along batchmate Rizza Cruz.

Palou is alarmed at the rate that collegiate stars are making the jump, hearing outrageous starting salaries from P350,000 to P400,000 a month that includes cars as signing bonuses.

“We need to nip this in the bud because parity will be the first thing that will suffer in our league,” he said. “Having team and individual caps will ensure that. And the Draft will make sure that the weaker teams (of the previous season) will get their chance to the better incoming players.”

Among the players who decided to turn pro and forego at least two seasons of UAAP eligibility were Ateneo’s Faith Nisperos, Narit and Ildefonso, Santo Tomas’ Imee Hernandez, Far Eastern U’s Jov Fernandez and University of the Philippines’ Alyssa Bertolano and Ethan Arce.

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