Digicel announces $22,000 cash sponsorship for Suva Volleyball club league which starts on Saturday.
Thursday 16th October – Digicel Fiji is happy to announce a $22,000 sponsorship deal for the Suva Volleyball Association for the second year running today. The sponsorship is specifically for the Digicel Suva Volleyball League which will run for 18-weeks beginning this Saturday.
The sponsorship is yet another major milestone for the sport not only in Suva but for Fiji and is in line with Digicel’s vision to empower the youths of Fiji through grassroots sponsorship.
Digicel Fiji Head of Marketing, Ms. Sheryl Singh presented the sponsorship cheque to the SVA officials at the company headquarters at Kadavu House this morning.
“We are happy to continue with the sponsorship of Suva’s weekly volleyball league and are looking forward to an improved competition and an increase in teams and players this season,” said Singh.
“We came on board to support the club competition in last March and we are happy with the way SVA officials have organized the meet and are delighted to learn the positive steps taken to improve the standard of competition this season.”
“Volleyball is a widely played sport at all levels and Digicel Fiji is happy to support the biggest association in the country with its weekly Saturday club games. In a first for Fiji, all Premier teams will receive a set of uniforms as part of the sponsorship, I am sure this will boost the clubs and their players to better performances.”
Suva Volleyball Association president Ratu Sakiusa Taubale said support by a corporate giant of this magnitude for the sport was very humbling.
“The strength of the Suva Volleyball Association has always been its ability to deliver quality game time and returns to the investments of each club every season,’’ Mr Taubale said.
“But it has always come at a great cost to us, and Digicel Fiji coming on board will ensure that we now can move up our competition to another level and free up funds which we can now direct to the player’s welfare and incentives every week.”
Part of the proposed plans now for the association will also include the secondary schools league which will begin in February 2015 with the assistance of the Suva Secondary Schools Volleyball Association.
For the main league proper, Digicel will be investing $700 every week for 18-weeks and to add value to this investment the SVA will carry out weekly outreach programs to designated clubs and schools.
Mr Taubale says this will be facilitated by referees to help raise the knowledge of all players and officials alike on the new changes under FIVB standards and also to disregard myths often picked up from street volleyball.
With the support of Digicel, full playing uniforms will be provided as an added incentive for the 12 clubs who had committed to the association from the previous season when Digicel first launched its sponsorship for the league competition.
“We all know that outfitting any sporting team is the biggest expense during the season and in this case $700-$900 would be the going rate for any team to be able to procure quality uniforms to last them the season,’’ Taubale adds.
The Suva Volleyball weekly club league starts this Saturday with final round scheduled for April 2015.
DIGICEL