PVL to hold inaugural draft in June, review salary cap implementation

A new era is in the offing for the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) as the country's pro volleyball fixture is set to hold its first-ever draft come June, while revisiting its plans of implementing a salary cap for the players.

The league announced the developments on Wednesday as it held a preseason press conference ahead of the 2024 All-Filipino Conference slated to kick off on February 20. 

Competition director Sherwin Malonzo shared that starting June, all aspirants who wish to enter the league will have to pass through a draft selection, which has been a common practice in other professional leagues like the PBA and the NBA. 

Malonzo said the league has yet to lay out all the plans pending the meeting with all teams, but disclosed that draft applicants should be at least 21 years old to be eligible, regardless of their educational attainment. 

"Come June, all players will apply to the draft. They have to pass through a draft," said Malonzo during the presser at the Discovery Suites in Ortigas. 

"[They have to be] at least 21 years old on the day of the drafting regardless if they are college [graduate], high school or out of school. We’re still furnishing the details of the draft which will be presented to the teams."

In addition to the debut of the draft, the PVL is also putting in the pipeline the implementation of salary cap on players' salaries and bonuses.

"We'd really like to install a salary cap on the salaries and bonuses of the players. The way things are going now is ang feeling namin is everything is getting out of hand. At the end of the day, it would be the teams that will be having difficulties in maintaining their own team," PVL president Ricky Palou said. 

"So we'd really like to put every team on a reasonable level. We are preparing some guidelines on what will be in the salary cap and we will present those to teams. We want to get their input."

Starting in the All-Filipino Conference as well, the PVL will carry out a number of format changes including the introduction of green cards, which will award players for fair play. Players and coaches are also prohibited from discussing plays during video challenges. 

—JKC, GMA Integrated News