Volleyball Nations League 2020 cancelled

May 08, 2020: Men’s and women’s Volleyball Nations League (VNL) is officially cancelled for the 2020 season.

VNL 2020 was scheduled to begin on May 19 for the women’s competition and May 22 for the men’s event. Ottawa’s Arena at TD Place was to be the site of the women’s hosting dates (June 2 to 4) in Canada; and WinSport’s Markin MacPhail Centre at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary was to host the men later that month.

The FIVB announced the postponement of the event in March 2020: “However, given the evolving nature of the pandemic, the complexity of staging the global event, across multiple host countries, and the commitment to safeguarding participants’ health, the VNL Council, the FIVB Board of Administration and the event organizers, jointly agreed to cancel this year’s edition of the VNL. The FIVB is continuing to work closely with all parties to coordinate the schedule for the VNL 2021 while retaining both Italy and China as the host nations for the finals.”

Read the full statement:
https://www.fivb.com/en/about/news/fivb-announces-cancellation-of-vnl-2020?id=90800

“We would like to thank our hosts and fans for their patience as the FIVB and its partners made the difficult decision to cancel the event this year due to the worldwide health crisis,” said Alan Ahac, Volleyball Canada’s Director of International Events. “VNL is an exciting showcase of our sport, and we’re looking forward to future events when it’s safe to play again.”

Refunds will be issued by TD Place (Ottawa) and Ticketmaster (Calgary) according to their respective policies.

The FIVB also confirmed that teams that qualified for the VNL 2020 in the 2019 edition of the Challenger Cup, the Slovenian national men’s volleyball team and Canada’s national women’s volleyball team, will retain their places for the VNL 2021. This would be the Canadian women’s team first appearance in VNL.

For those who have never experienced the excitement of VNL, the FIVB also announced free access to its online portal to watch past matches: https://www.fivb.com/en/about/news/watch-thousands-of-hours-of-volleyball-tv?id=90778

Other COVID-19 related updates as of May 08:

• The Volleyball Canada Hall of Fame, which was to be held in Calgary in June during VNL weekend, is now carried over to next year. The 2020 inductees will be publicly inducted in 2021. The call for nominations for 2022 will be posted on our web site by end of this year. The AGM, which was also to be held the weekend of June 19 to 21, will be held online during the same time period.
   
• Canada Cup: As was earlier communicated to stakeholders, the 2020 Canada Cup event organized by Volleyball Canada is postponed to July 2021 in Calgary. For more information on proposed dates and format, please contact dsales@volleyball.ca

Link to latest Sport Medicine Advisory Committee update:
https://csiontario.ca/news/update-15-advisory-covid-19

Note: for past updates, please see this page on our web site:
https://volleyball.ca/en/news/volleyball-canada-update-covid-19

Volleyball Canada media contact:
Jackie Skender jskender@volleyball.ca
Mobile:  613-794-7676