Christmas day will be a day of volleyball at 18.00 at BLM Group Arena in Trento, for the first time in volleyball history.
Itas Trentino and Consar Ravenna will face each other on 25th december, and this decision found sad and upset Ravenna’s player Davide Saitta, radical religious, who sent an open letter to Pope Francis, asking for a “save” of his Christmas. The letter is full of value and love, giving to Saitta a big human value, but in a calendar and an international schedule very tight and full, the choices are compulsory. The BLM Group Arena is already scheduled on 26th december for a basketball game, and 25th seemed to be a good chance for the volleyball movement to take and bring people to a relaxing and nice volleyball event in the Trento’s arena.
Lega Volley Italian Volleyball CEO Massimo Righi said: “I already spoke wit Saitta before the letter to Pope Francis, and his position is totally respectable. On the other hand we need to force our teams to this schedule, because of the CIO Qualifiers for Tokyo 2020 which will take place in Berlin early in january, and because we did not have really space to do otherwise”.
Plenty of international leagues in the world are used to play on Christmas Day, the NBA Christmas Day is one of the top events in the world, with all the top teams facing each other, for the show, for the event, for the league and for the good of the spectators and the audience, who pay big money to follow the sport.
