BVA General Assembly held in Skopje with all 11 members in attendance

The desire to exchange experiences and discuss about future strategic goals outweighed the constraints still brought about by the pandemic, with representatives from all 11 members attending the XXIII General Assembly of the Balkan Volleyball Association (BVA). At the meeting held in Skopje, the President of the Volleyball Federation of North Macedonia, Petar Jovanovski, who had served as the chair of the BVA for two years in a row, stepped down from this position, with the head of the Turkish Volleyball Federation, Mr Mehmet Akif Üstündag replacing him at the helm of the zonal association.

“You are an excellent example for the European Volleyball family. It does not happen that often that all BVA members are coming together, especially in such circumstances. It shows that friendship and mutual understanding bring good cooperation among you. The Macedonian Volleyball family has made much progress in a short time by organising the Final Four tournament of the men’s CEV European Silver League and it will host this year’s #EuroVolleyU19W as well. This means that the whole Balkan area has a good starting point for the future,” said CEV President Aleksandar Boričić, who attended the General Assembly together with CEV Senior Vice-President Renato Arena.

“The participation and solidarity of all of you helps us to grow our sport. The BVA continued to organise activities at every level even during the pandemic, but for understandable reasons, there was a reduction in the number of programmes delivered. I hope that the pandemic will be over soon and we need to find a way to speed up our activities. The financial report says that the BVA invested money only into the sport, and not for administrative purposes. I want to congratulate you all on that,” said Mr Özkan Mutlugil, who is the President of the CEV Working Group Development & Cooperation with Zonal Associations.

The delegates attending the BVA General Assembly approved the competition calendar for 2022. Six Balkan Championships in different age categories will be taking place across as many as five countries, with the BVA Technical Commission due to determine the exact dates in late April while finalising the list of participating teams as well.

The U20 Men’s Balkan Championship will be taking place in Kosovo, the U19 women’s competition in Romania, with Serbia due to host the U18 men’s and U17 women’s Balkan Championships. Bulgaria and Turkey will be playing host to the youngest age groups – U17 men and U16 women, respectively. Moreover, the General Assembly approved plans for the delivery of U22 and U20 Balkan Beach Volleyball Championships.

From now on, the BVA will promote its activities on a modernised website, which will stream all matches of all Balkan championships. The BVA delegates concluded that it is time to act much more in this regard, and thus focus on the young and rising stars of Balkan Volleyball.

The next General Assembly of the Balkan Volleyball Association will be taking place in Istanbul, Turkey, in early 2023.