Nigel Si­mon

T&T's men's vol­ley­baller Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore will head­line a list of more than 36 lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al pro­fes­sion­al play­ers who will par­tic­i­pate in the Caribbean Vol­ley­ball League on a yet to be in­stalled new mon­do floor­ing at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo from June 6 to 10. The five-day tour­na­ment with an over­all bud­get of $668,230.00 fea­tur­ing five men and four women's teams is be­ing host­ed by the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion with the sup­port of the Fed­er­a­tion In­ter­na­tion­al Vol­ley­ball and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T. It will be the first of a se­ries of events be­ing staged to cel­e­brate the 50th an­niver­sary of the T&TVF which will end with a Norce­ca Beach Vol­ley­ball Tour­na­ment in Oc­to­ber. This was an­nounced by Daymi­an Stew­art, chair­man of the Lo­cal Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee for the Tour­na­ment at the Lo­cal Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee Of­fice, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, yes­ter­day. Four years, a Women's Pro­fes­sion­al League was host­ed by the T&TVF, but this time around it has been ex­pand­ed to in­clude a men's tour­na­ment.

In ad­di­tion to Hon­ore, who last month helped SL Ben­fi­ca to a record 14th Por­tugese Cup and a run­ner-up in the A-1 Pre­mier Di­vi­sion, the oth­er pro­fes­sion­al play­ers from T&T ex­pect­ed to rep­re­sent lo­cal clubs in­cludes the Poland-based pair of Sinead Jack (AZS Bi­a­ly­stock) and Chan­non Thomp­son (AZS Bi­a­ly­stock); Kel­ly-Anne Billingy (Nantes/France) and Krys­telle Es­delle (Club Schw­er­iner SC/Ger­many). Hon­ore is al­so com­ing off a sol­id dis­play at the Norce­ca Men's Con­ti­nen­tal Lon­don Olympic Qual­i­fiers in Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia for T&T where he nar­row­ly missed out on two in­di­vid­ual awards, for "Best Scor­er" and "Best Spik­er." Among the se­nior na­tion­al play­ers who will al­so fea­ture are US-based stu­dents, Dar­lene Ramdin and Renele Forde, as well as Nolan Tash, Saleem Ali, Sean Mor­ri­son, Ryan Ma­hadeo, Jes­sel Davis, Kevin Nim­rod, Court­nee-Mae Clif­ford, Rheeza Grant and Shurvette Beck­les. The teams due to com­pete for the US $5,000 first prize are Big South East Port-of-Spain (SE­Pos), De­fence Force, Glam­or­gan, Tech­nocrats and To­co Youths Vol­ley­ball Acad­e­my among the men while De­fence Force, Glam­or­gan, Tech­nocrats and the star-stud­ded Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) will do bat­tle in the women's com­pe­ti­tion.

Speak­ing at the me­dia launch, Stew­art, al­so the Vice-Pres­i­dent of the T&TVF said some of top play­ers from around the Caribbean in­clu­sive of Bar­ba­dos (Dale Ad­di­son, Fabi­an Cox), Ja­maica (Mark Lewis, Delford Mor­gan) Ba­hamas (Bryan Fer­gus­son, Ja­mal Fer­gus­son, Ronal­do Knowles, Prince Wil­son). He added: "The lo­cal clubs are al­so in ne­go­ti­a­tions with some top play­ers from the oth­er Norce­ca teams as well as North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope which will add more qual­i­ty to the tour­na­ment. Stew­art, not­ed some in­ter­na­tion­al club teams were in­ter­est­ed in send­ing their en­tire teams to par­tic­i­pate, how­ev­er the or­gan­is­ers saw it fit to fo­cus more on giv­ing lo­cal play­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their tal­ents as in­ter­na­tion­al scouts present. With the na­tion­al teams set to de­fend their re­spec­tive men and women ti­tles at the Se­nior Caribbean Cham­pi­onships at the end of Ju­ly, Stew­art urged the spec­ta­tors to come out and give their sup­port as the match­es are ex­pect­ed to be of high qual­i­ty and the play­ers look to im­press the na­tion­al coach­es. As part of the in­cen­tive to at­tract spec­ta­tors, live en­ter­tain­ment will be pro­vid­ed night­ly and a tick­ets for a raf­fle will go on sale to be drawn at a lat­er date, boast­ing a first prize of a new Toy­ota Se­da mo­tor ve­hi­cle. With less than two weeks be­fore the start of the tour­na­ment, Stew­art said ef­forts are al­so be­ing made to have live stream­ing over the in­ter­net for most of the match­es.