Date of Release: June 22, 2009

New Express (Reporter Wu Luting): China’s first professional volleyball club - Evergrande Women’s Volleyball Club officially appeared last night. Last night, Evergrande Women’s Volleyball Team defeated Guangdong Women’s Volleyball Team with a result of 3:2 in a special tournament conducted in Jinshazhou, Guangzhou, starting to show itself in China’s volleyball section.

Evergrande Women’s Volleyball Team is China’s first incorporated professional volleyball club Evergrande Real Estate Group Limited invested 20,000,000 yuan in. This club is China’s first volleyball club totally operated in the business mode, creating a new mode of self-financing, self-survival, self-development for China’s volleyball clubs.

According to the introduction of the head of the club, they will be independently responsible for overall operation such as the matters on the coaches, athletes and training ground of the club. Its front-line players directly registered at the national volleyball management center may participate in any national match on behalf of Guangdong. Evergrande Women’s Volleyball Club intends to establish the second and third teams with Guangdong Provincial Sports Bureau to train back-up talents together. Evergrande Women’s Volleyball Team has invited a few women’s volleyball elites across China to it. This team consists of 11 players in total with average height of over 1.82 meters. “They are all Evergrande Group’s full-time employees and several of them once worked for the national team. Qiu Fengrui, original main coach of Hebei Provincial Men’s Team and Women’s Team, is its chief coach.” according to the introduction of a club leader.

Zhao Baoguang, deputy director of Guangdong Provincial Basketball and Volleyball Management Center, said, in nature, this club was the same as Guangdong Hongyuan Team, a CBA team, and with the development of the league, it would be possible each province had two league teams, though each province could have only one team to participate in the league then according to the regulations on women’s volleyball league.

Next, Evergrande Women’s Volleyball Team will successively conduct a series of tournaments with each provincial women’s volleyball team in Guangzhou. According to the in-group source, Evergrande Women’s Volleyball Team will bring new life to China’s professional volleyball section kept silent for long and further promote the development of China’s professional volleyball system by challenging each provincial women’s volleyball team.