Pacquiao-founded volleyball league to showcase homegrown talent

MANILA, Philippines – There’s another volleyball league in town. 

The Manny Pacquiao-founded Maharlika Pilipinas Volleyball Association (MPVA) was launched on Friday morning.

The LGU-based league will have its inaugural season from October to December this year. 

Currently, there are 10 teams that will play in the home-and-away format, with focus on homegrown players. There will be a limit of three former professionals per team. 

Pacquiao said that the league will zero in on a grassroots program. 

There will be teams from Marikina, Caloocan, Rizal, Binan, Agusan del Norte, Manila, Bulacan, Bacoor, Quezon City, and a team called “Blue Hawks.” 

According to the boxing icon, one of the plans for the league is to have a youth-development program. 

“That is one of the plans of the MPVA, to have a junior’s division of the MPVA,” he told reporters in Filipino. 

“This MPVA, this will be the start to have encouragement and where their dreams will start,” he added, saying that the junior MPVA will head to communities, cities and provinces. 

For his part, league commissioner Michael Tavera said they are aiming to discover more talents through the league. 

“We will try to discover more talents because this is a community event, community volleyball, so we see that some of the team owners made their respective tryouts,” Tavera told reporters.  

“This will have a good outcome,” he added. 

The tournament will have a single round for the eliminations, while the playoffs will be a best-of-three affair until the finals.