MANILA, Philippines – Nothing related to the PVL semifinal officiating controversy.
The PLDT High Speed Hitters pulled out of the 2024 Invitational Conference, league commissioner Sherwin Malonzo confirmed on Sunday, September 1, but noted it had nothing to do with the contentious Akari-PLDT match.
The executive made it clear that PLDT’s pullout is due to lingering injuries — a matter that preceded its much more controversial protest of Akari’s eventual five-set, final-clinching ouster of the High Speed Hitters in the Reinforced Conference on Saturday, August 31.
As it stands, the 2024 Invitational Conference featuring reigning champion Kurashiki Ablaze of Japan and EST Cola of Thailand is set to start mere days after the end of the 2024 Reinforced tilt, and will feature the latter tournament’s four semifinalists: Akari, Cignal, Creamline, and PLDT.
The High Speed Hitters, however, still do not have their top two weapons: Kianna Dy, who has not played a single game since her former team F2’s disbandment, and Fil-Canadian star Savi Davison, thus spurring them to file a leave of absence.
Malonzo said the league already has a replacement for PLDT, but is opting to wait until the official announcement.
If the Reinforced Conference standings are to be followed, invites have likely already been sent to quarterfinalists Chery Tiggo, Petro Gazz, Capital1, and Farm Fresh.
Also waiting in the wings are No. 9 Choco Mucho, No. 10 Nxled, No. 11 Galeries Tower, and No. 12 ZUS Coffee, if indeed the invites were sent by descending order in the standings.
‘There will be action:’ PVL accepts PLDT protest on controversial knockout semifinal vs Akari
As for PLDT’s other issue on the controversial semifinal ending, Malonzo said the PVL will accept the team’s protest and will act on it accordingly.
“We’ll see. We have to wait for their argument and from there, we will likely answer, but we still need to see, because our only basis is what happened. We just based them on all the rules, the net fault rules, and our challenge rules,” Malonzo said in Filipino in a separate interview Saturday night.
“[The officials’ final call] will be [the PVL’s stance] so we need to see their protest to see if we may have missed something, right? Just to give them a chance. There will be action, but how we will act, I cannot answer for now [since we need to see their protest].” – Rappler.com