Volleyball is NOT spared from recession.

Boo!

The 2012/2013 season holds the record with the least number of foreign players.

The Serie A in Italy, the top league in the country, has lost more than half of its starts in recent years. Italian players like Simona Gioli, Eleonora Lo Bianco, Antonella Del Core, Carolina Costagrande and Sara Anzanello have abandoned the Italian League to seek greener pasture in countries like Turkey and China.

Czech Republic’s Havelkova and Havlickova, who played a great season with Yamamay last season, have left Italy to play in Russia and Azerbaijan.

As for male athletes who played in Italia last season, Croatian Igor Omrcen (opposite star of Macerata) moved to Asia to play in the Japanese League where he was obviously offered a much higher salary.

Volleyball players at the summer market experienced a large drop in purchases of foreign reinforcements European leagues. Famous Italian league lost as much as half of foreign stars.

Italian club teams are having troubles with money. Consequently, only 75 foreign players are registered in the league this season compared to last year’s 145.

Pro league in countries like Greece and Spain, who both hold the highest unemployment rate in the continent, are also facing major major major crisis. Only 7 foreign players from 53 last year are playing in Espanya this season.

Premiere Leagues in Russia, Turkey and Poland are also facing crisis.

Check this out:

Country-2012/2013-2011/2012

France-217-242
Italy -75-145
Russia-38-47
Poland-30-43
Turkey-25-32
Greece-14-44
Spain-7-53
Portugal-16-35

Tough times indeed.

Thoughts?

(source: volleycountry.com/ images: zimbio.com)