Phil and I forfeited our game yesterday vs. New Zealand for a variety of reasons. One, it has been well documented that my back has been a source of irritation and concern this year. Rather than play and risk that injury, we decided it would be better not to as we had learned that we were guaranteed to come out of our pool.

Secondly, most people probably don’t know this but I and all the americans want it to be known that the FIVB changed the Bonus Pool structure this year. Bonus Pool Money is essentially half the money that players get for playing in the FIVB events. Last year the structure was to get all of your BP money, you had to play in 8 FIVB events. You could get 70% of your BP Money by playing in 4 FIVB events. The percentage went up from there until you reached 100% at 8 events. This was confirmed at the FIVB World Council meetings and Permanent Committee meetings last year in late September. Then the changeover from President Acosta to President Wei happened and there was a huge shake up at the FIVB with everyone jockeying for position. Out of the tussle came the President of the Brazilian National Federation AND President of the South American Confederation (similar to NORCECA), Ari Graca. He arbitrarily changed the Bonus Pool Structure in March. Teams now have to play in all of the FIVB events except 3 to get any Bonus Pool Money at all!!! This of course completely screws the American players. Essentially we are being asked to pick between the FIVB Tour or the AVP Tour. The Euro’s are okay with it since most of them do not have national tours. The Brazilians are fine with it as their national tour is in the northern hemispheres winter time and there are pretty much no FIVB events during that time. I have been told that the reason for the change is to get the players more committed to the FIVB. I posed the questions that, “don’t you think this is going to hurt any current national tours in the northern hemisphere as well as any national tours in the northern hemisphere that would like to start up?” “Isn’t the FIVB mandated by the IOC to try and help the national federations grow the sport in each country?”

So for Phil and I, we have to make a decision on who to support. It was a no brainer for us. The AVP is why the American men and women have done so well in the Olympics in my opinion. Who has strong domestic tours in the world? The Brazilians and Americans. The two most dominant countries in the world. To forsake our bread and butter just doesn’t make sense. Also, and I am not accusing here, just questioning, who benefits the most from this change? The Brazilians. They already have a national tour and it does not affect it. They tend to play in almost all of the FIVB events as well. My question is and I can’t truly say yes or no, is it a coincidence that this was changed considering who is now in power?

The bottom line for Phil and I was we were all set to play in 8 FIVB events this year. We were okay with missing 2 AVP events as we didn’t think it would kill our tour. Would it hurt it a bit, yes, but I think it was a fair compromise for everyone. But to ask us to miss 6 events would severely hurt the tour and we won’t do that.

I am curious as to what people think out there? Please comment.

For more on Olympic gold medalist Todd Rogers, visit www.toddjrogers.com

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