The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Volleyball Academy was inaugurated on Saturday in Bannu with the collaboration of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Volleyball Association (KPKA).
Former Pakistani team’s coach and Secretary General KP Volleyball Association Khalid Waqar was the chief guest on this occasion who formally inaugurated the Academy, said former international volleyball player and qualified coach Laiq Mohammad Khan.
Speaking on the occasion he said, a cricket-style volleyball league would be launched in December.
“We are fully satisfied with Bannu volleyball which is in strong hands”. He said Bannu Region always produced prominent volleyball players who remained part of the national junior and national series teams and wanted to polish more talented youth at grassroots level.
He said due to existing talent, now four or five players joined the national team from Bannu.
The volleyball association would fully support the academy, he said.
The academy’s coach and national coach Laiq Khan said the academy was started some time ago but was closed later due to covid 19.
He said, dozens of players from Bannu, Karak District, Tank District, Dera Ismail Khan, Mir Ali, Miranshah and Lakki Marwat were undergoing training for which they would invite more coaches from Pakistan at different times to train players from other districts of the province.
“We are in touch and after getting the hostel facilities, players from all the districts of the prov-ince will be included in this academy” he said hop-ing that more than half of the players for the na-tional volleyball team would be provided from this academy.
District Sports Officer Shafatullah Khan, For-mer District Sports Officer Anwar Rasheed Khan, Former District Sports Officer Habibullah Khan, Administrator Sports Complex Ehsanullah Khan, General Secretary of District Sports Association Mohammad Nizam-ul-Haq, Naseeb-ur-Rehman of Futsal.—APP
