KVF mulls return to FIVB empowerment program

Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) is on the verge of being re-admitted to the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Volleyball Empowerment Program, Citizen Digital can reveal.

The Empowerment Program is a global development initiative that provides financial, technical and human resources to National Federations (NFs) to improve their national teams performances. It also aims at making volleyball self-sustainable worldwide.

Kenya had benefited from the above partnership in 2021 through the national women’s volleyball team Malkia Strikers, but later pull out of the lucrative Sh88 million partnership with FIVB in early 2024 due to disagreement over the technical bench composition of team.

KVF demanded three local slots on the technical bench, while FIVB wanted to retain a formula of foreign experts with only two local assistant slots.

The FIVB empowerment program had head coach Luizomar de Moura, trainer Jefferson Arostir, Strength and Conditioning coach Marcelo Vitorino de Souza, and team manager Roberto Opice Neto.

The two - FIVB and KVF - would fall out after Malkia Strikers participation in the 2024 Tokyo Olympic Games.

And, when FIVB president Fabian Azevedo visited the country early this month during the 2026 CAVB Women’s African Nations championship in Nairobi, KVF led by president Charles Nyaberi took the chance to express their desire to have the program back in the country with more submissions and proposals .

Nyaberi revealed that besides championing for their prime product-Malkia Strikers, they had also requested the international body to consider extending the same partnership for the Kenya men’s volleyball team,Wafalme Stars, the men and women’s national beach volleyball teams.

Also, in their proposal was for the country to have an international centre of excellence where coaches, stacticians, physiotherapists, nutritionists among other personnel across the region can assemble to gather and learn more on their various fields and youth programs.

“I was recently with president of the FIVB Development Commission Mushtaque Mohammed in Tunisia during the men’s African Nations Championship and he hinted to me that the re-admitting was good as done. We now await to see which products they will offer us or support us with because we need to hit the road running.

"The sport is moving pretty fast and we don’t want to lag behind. It’s unfortunate that we pulled out of the program when Malkia Strikers were in top shape. This is not an individual entity but it’s all for the betterment of sport,” said Nyaberi.

Asked if the new development will sit well with some of the Kenyan coaches who have been against the previous arrangement Nyaberi said that the initiative is centered around players.

"It’s about the prosperity of the players and therefore if we have to move forward and compete against the top teams in the world, we have no choice but to welcome back the Empowerment program. This does not however mean that our coaches don’t have the capability, we just want reinforcement at the highest level with our locals’ coaches being their understudies.”

Nyaberi also admitted that it was painful to watch Malkia Strikers fail to qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games falling at the hands of eventual winner Egypt 3-0 (25-22,25-15,25-15) but remained positive that the team will back and bigger and better.

Should the partnership empowerment get the green light, then Malkia Striker are likely to have a technical bench from FIVB ahead of the FIVB World Cup set for next year to be co-hosted in United States of America and Canada.