Lee Da-yeong joins Panionios for short stint ahead of San Diego Mojo move in January

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Lee Da-yeong joins Panionios for short stint ahead of San Diego Mojo move in January

Published: 10 Oct. 2024, 12:52 Updated: 10 Oct. 2024, 16:56

PAIK JI-HWAN
paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr

JIM BULLEY
jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr

Lee Da-yeong poses with a Panionios scarf in a photo shared on the club's website on Wednesday. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Korean volleyball player Lee Da-yeong has joined Greek team Panionios until the end of this year before moving to San Diego Mojo in the United States, the Greek club announced Wednesday.

This marks her second time competing in Greece, where she played for PAOK Thessaloniki during the 2021-22 season.

The short stint with Panionios allows Lee to tuneup before making her debut for San Diego Mojo, with whom she signed last month. The 2025 Pro Volleyball Federation season begins in January.

Lee has played overseas since being forced to leave V League team Heungkuk Life Insurance Pink Spiders in February 2021 after being embroiled in a school bullying scandal.

Lee Da-yeong, one half of the Lee twins, made her professional debut with Suwon Hyundai Engineering & Construction Hillstate in the V League in 2014. She later joined the Pink Spiders in 2020.

Despite showing outstanding performance alongside her twin sister, Lee Jae-yeong, while playing for the Pink Spiders, both siblings were forced to leave the team after former middle school teammates accused them of being bullies, listing 21 allegations, including claims that one of the sisters had threatened them with a knife.

Lee Da-yeong then joined Greek club PAOK Thessaloniki and played the entire 2021-22 season before moving to Romanian club Rapid Bucuresti ahead of the 2022-23 season.

She seemed to adapt to the Romanian league at first but disappeared from the roster after suffering multiple injuries during the season.

A back injury suffered at the end of the season forced her to return to Korea for treatment. With her future at the Romanian club looking unclear, she chose to move to Volero Le Cannet and played the entire 2023-24 campaign in France.

Following her one-season spell with the French team, she signed with San Diego Mojo.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN, JIM BULLEY [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]