For the first time in history, the FIVB President, Jizhong Wei, was present in the official presentation of the men’s Serie A season. He was welcomed by Italian League President Diego Mosna, who gave the go ahead to the 66th championship. “One of the most important changes we have done was to put the National leagues as a priority in the world” explained Mosna who also talked about the experimenting of the “Sport Moles”.
President Wei took the opportunity to announce that a new revolutionary rule is being thought out: the possibility to allow the teams to make their six siubstitutions per set freely, which means one same player could be substituted and come back on court several time in the same set.
The A2 will kick off on October 17 while the A1 will start on October 24. For the second consecutive season, Rai, Italy’s national TV, will have the exclusivity and will broadcast the A1 games on Rai Sport 1 and Rai Sport 2. One game will be on Saturday at 4pm and another one on Sunday at 6pm. Besides, an agreement has been reached with Eurosport, who will broadcast an A1 game in Europe.
Awards for 2009-10 season:
“Costa–Anderlini” award, Best Italian coach
Alberto Giuliani Serie A1
Andrea Giani Serie A2
“Gianfranco Badiali” award, Best Italian player under 23
Gabriele Maruotti Serie A1
Ivan Zaytsev Serie A2
“Jimmy George” award, Most ‘fair play’ fans in the A1
Itas Diatec Trentino
“Kirk Kilgour” award, Most ‘fair play’ fans in the A2
Globo Banca Popolare del Frusinate Sora
“Ilario Toniolo” award, Best referee in A1
Paolo Barbero
“Cesare Massaro” award, Best referee in A2
Alessandro Tanasi
“Andrej Kuznetsov” award, Top scorer
Angel Dennis Serie A1
Anderson Giacomini Serie A2
“Milena Pastore” award, best journalist Under35
Fabrizio Monari
Indivisual classification:
Best server – Osmany Juantorena
Best receiver – Alessandro Paparoni
Best spiker – Leonel Marshall
Best middle blocker – Luigi Mastrangelo
Most aces registered- Igor Omrcen
Most blocks registered – Konstantin Shumov
Most winning spikes registered – Mauro Gavotto