Let's start the countdown for the DOL in Vienna

2009/2010 European Cups

Luxembourg, June 24, 2009. All volleyball fans are extremely eagerly waiting for Friday night, as the traditional European Volleyball Gala will be staged in the magnificent Vienna’s Town Hall combined with the Drawing of Lots for the 2009/2010 CEV Indesit Champions League and CEV Cup. The event – which is set to start at 8 pm – will be live-televised, with ORF Sport Plus serving as host broadcaster and CEV partner LAOLA1.tv providing a live streaming at www.laola1.tv
With a total of 24 and 16 teams having registered for the 2009/2010 CEV Indesit Champions League in the men’s and women’s division respectively, clubs will be drawn into 6 respectively 4 preliminary pools. All Pools will consist of 4 teams, with home and away matches to be played starting from next December 1, 2009. Both defending champions, Italy’s TRENTINO Volley and Volley BERGAMO are included in the starting list and will be certainly aiming at defending the titles they clinched with a couple of dazzling performances a few months ago in Prague and Perugia. Italy and Poland will be represented by three teams in the men’s competition and that will be the case also in the Women’s Champions League, with Russia also lining up three clubs to try to storm back to the top of the European volleyball family.
During the European Volleyball Gala Italian star Serena Ortolani and Swede Marcus Nilsson will be honored for their outstanding performances during the finals of the past season, whereas Croatian Irina Kirillova will receive a CEV Honorary Award for her startling career which started out some two decades with the gold medal she got with the then Soviet Union at the Seoul Olympics.
The European Volleyball Gala will also feature the first ever public and televised Drawing of Lots for the CEV Cup, with a total of 25 countries represented there. Actually, the program of the evening will start with the Drawing of the Women’s and Men’s CEV Cup, with Austria’s aon hotVolleys VIENNA and SVS Post SCHWECHAT having opted to compete there for the 2009/2010 season.
The European Gala fires up a really promising season, with a total of 174 teams having enrolled for the three European Cups, a very slight decrease in comparison with the past years but still quite an encouraging result taking into account the financial crisis that has been deeply affecting also the international sports family over the past few months.