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Korea to take on Thailand in All-Star women's volleyball series

Published: 25 Mar. 2025, 14:43 Updated: 25 Mar. 2025, 15:57

PAIK JI-HWAN
[email protected]

Volleyball players from around the world pose for a photo after the KYK Invitational 2024 Women's Volleyball All-Star Game at Jamsil Arena in southern Seoul on June 9, 2024. [YONHAP]

The Korea Volleyball Federation (KOVO) announced Tuesday that Team Korea will play an All-Star women’s volleyball series against Team Thailand at Hwaseong Gymnasium in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, on April 19 and 20, while V League nonregular picks will compete in a business team tournament in July, in an effort to elevate the league’s competitiveness.

The All-Star game series between Korea and Thailand had taken place in both countries since it first began in 2017, but it was discontinued after the 2019 edition due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The All-Star series offers Korean players a rare opportunity to experience international volleyball.

Apart from regular national team picks, V League players cannot learn skills from foreign talent as they do not compete in international tournaments regularly.

The league has brought in more foreign players through the Asia Quota draft — a system adopted in 2023 through which all seven teams can recruit an additional foreign player provided they are from select Asian countries — but the league has not been active in hosting international competitions for domestic players.

Against this backdrop, the Korean women’s volleyball team has struggled on the international stage recently, failing to qualify for the Paris Olympics last year while recording a 30-game losing streak in the Volleyball Nations League from 2021 to 2024.

The Korean women's volleyball team, front, reacts after losing a Volleyball Nations League game 3-0 to Poland at West Suwon Chilbo Gymnasium in Suwon, Gyeonggi on July 2, 2023. [NEWS1]

The KOVO’s plan to allow nonregular V League picks to compete in a business team contest, meanwhile, can ensure them much-needed playing time that they cannot secure anywhere else.

The V League, which lacks a reserve team system, also doesn’t have a second-tier league where nonregular picks can compete.

V League players that meet one of three requirements — those who played less than five years in the V League, those who played less than 50 percent of games or fewer than 100 sets in a single season or those who did not receive a national team call-up recently — can compete in the upcoming business team contest scheduled from July 7 to 15 in Danyang County, North Chungcheong.

A maximum of 12 nonregular picks can compose an entirely new V League team in the tournament. The KOVO will provide accommodation and everything else the players need.

The KOVO has also taken a step to cultivate more youth talent with a long-term plan, as the federation announced Tuesday that it will form elite youth teams starting next year.

The federation will first create one male and one female team that includes third- to fourth-graders and run them as clubs in 2026 in order for players from those teams to hone skills and join elite middle and high school teams.

The federation’s call comes as the V League has seen fewer prospects, with both the men's and women’s national teams struggling.

The men’s national team has seen a longer streak of unimpressive results, having failed to qualify for the Olympics since 2004. The squad even missed a medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023, which marked their first medalless run at the Asiad in 61 years.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [[email protected]]