Dialog President's gold cup VB from September 12

Bernard PERERA

The fifth annual Dialog President's Gold Cup Volleyball Tournament organised and conducted by Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation is due to commence on September 12, 2009. The first stage of the tourney at district level will be completed by over 1500 men and women teams.

This revealed to the press by President of the SLVBF Dilan Perera at a media conference held at Galadari Hotel on Wednesday. Perera further added that the National Sport Volleyball has taken a great step forward with the assistance from Dialog Telekom. During the past four years the tourney has been a very success.

At a time the sport was at a very low ebb it was Dialog which supported the sport to reach greater height with their Lavish sponsorship.

This not only helped the game but also gave the players their due prestige through advertising done by the sponsor.

This helped the federation immensely to popularise the game and also to develop the sport in Sri Lanka. Last year 1128 teams from the country participated with over 50 teams from the cleared Eastern Province in attendance.

Though the Northern Province teams had the willingness to participate but due to the situation prevailed at the time they could not take part.

With the war situation completely wiped out the organisers expect a fair number of teams to enter this year's competition. Few teams that participated last year could not reach the national level.

This year with the players having the freedom to practise they hope to put on a good show to enter at least the Provincial Level tourney.

The first four teams from the district tourney will qualify to play in the provincial tourney and two teams that come on top in the provincial tourney will battle it out in the national championship scheduled for mid November.

The preliminary round match at district level which begins on Sept 12 will conclude on Sept 19, while the second stage the Provincial Tourney starts on October 02 and ends on October 24.

The national stage for both categories men and women will be played from November 19-24 at National Youth Services Council courts.

Kavan Ratnayake, Chief Executive Officer Dialog Fixed Telephony and Broadband services addressing the media said that volleyball, the national sport needs everyone's support for its up keep. Though the business community, at present faced many hardships our company thought it fitting to support the sport as it has proved a success in the past.

Our company wants the sport prosper further and this made us to sponsor the event.

He thanked the SLVBF for their invitation for the fifth successive year.

The winners of both categories will be awarded the President's Trophy and a cash award of Rs. 150,000 while the runners-up team are to carry a purse worth Rs. 100,000. This prize money also happens to be the biggest award offered for a volleyball championship.

The entries for the tournament should be addressed to the Air Commodore Rohan Pathirage, Chairman Tournament Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation, No.2 Reid Avenue, Colombo. Entries should reach him before September 3, 2009.