INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

However, after many following meetings with people from inside
the system and people who were outsiders such as coaches, past
players, friends and family members, I came to a decision to choose to
become part of the male network, without giving up on my values.
This was based on the fact that there seemed no way to win the fight
when there is only one woman within the association, and fights as
such must be organized by Associations, such as the Women’s Sport
Foundation.
As months passed by, people understood that this project could be
established. It started to be identified as M's project, not that of the
Volleyball Association. Due to this, many new problems appeared
from different and surprising directions. Within the Volleyball
Association, many people realized that the project was going to be
quite expensive (though less expensive than for the boys), which
would mean less money becoming available for men volleyball and
related activities and positions. A big protest against the project arose
and the feeling was that we were going to witness the same scenario
that had occurred with the “Selinger Project”, where at the final
moments everybody regretted the decision and voted against it.
An offer from one of the most influential figures within the
volleyball association had been raised, in order to find a way to
continue the process (as he said). He suggested to postpone all other
activities of women volleyball for 2 years, with the exception of the
VAYTP, to make this project a reality This suggestion was the “catch
22” of the project.
It is worth acknowledging at this point that the Israeli women’s
volleyball during the last 14 years had more and more players that
were originally from east European countries, which raised the level
of the game. However, the clubs’ owners chose invest continually
greater sums of money on bringing more players from E. Europe to
Israel instead of developing grassroots talents.
This situation unfortunately brought many of the clubs great
financial difficulties, and some big clubs fell apart and disappeared
from the Israeli volleyball map. The establishment of the Israeli
School’s Sport Federation changed this picture in terms of the
numbers of Israeli girls who participated in volleyball. This, however,
could not offer the solution for the quality and the level of the game.
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