Alan Nine
Volleyball.it opened the July 13 news cycle with a mix of national-team preparation, competition scheduling, structural league news and international governance. The most immediate on-court focus was on Italy's senior men, now heading into a decisive Volleyball Nations League week in Osaka, while the women's side learned its exact place in the VNL Finals bracket. Around those headline items, the site also tracked a significant media-rights change for Serie A femminile, a licensing problem in Japan involving the Toray Arrows clubs, and a positive result for Italy's women's sitting volley team at the world championship.
International
Italy is now moving directly toward its VNL debut in Osaka, where the Azzurri will open Pool 9 against Japan on Tuesday July 15 at 12:20 Italian time. Volleyball.it framed the match as the start of a crucial third week for the team coached by Ferdinando De Giorgi, with opposite Yuri Romanò presenting the challenge as a high-level test and saying he expects a strong sporting battle. The Osaka leg is clearly one of the pivotal checkpoints of Italy's VNL summer, and Volleyball.it treated the opening meeting with the host nation as the first major step in that sequence.
On the women's side, the bracket for the VNL Finals is now set in detail. Volleyball.it reported that Italy will open the quarterfinal program against the Netherlands on Wednesday July 22 at 10:00 Italian time in Macao, after the official schedule was updated. The item focused on the revised timetable for the quarterfinal round and confirmed that the Azzurre of Julio Velasco will be first on court in the knockout stage. After finishing the preliminary phase among the leading sides in the standings, Italy now has a defined path and a fixed opening appointment for the finals week.
Italian Volleyball
One of the most consequential off-court stories of the day concerned the broadcast and digital distribution of Serie A femminile for the 2026-2027 season. Volleyball.it reported that the new model will place A1 Fineco across Rai, DAZN and the social platforms of the Lega, clubs and players. The same article also underlined that VBTV will no longer be part of the package. Even without entering every commercial detail, the change marks a clear shift in visibility strategy, combining traditional television, subscription streaming and direct social distribution inside a single media plan.
Abroad
Volleyball.it also highlighted a notable development from Japan, where the SV.League sanctioned both Toray Arrows Shiga and Toray Arrows Shizuoka. According to the article, the men's and women's clubs were found not to have met the financial requirements set by the league's licensing regulations. The report added that both clubs must restore their net assets, making the situation a potentially serious one in licensing terms. In practical terms, the story stood out because it involved two established club brands at once and placed their immediate regulatory position under scrutiny.
News FIPAV
Italy's women's sitting volley team supplied the day's completed result. Volleyball.it reported that the side coached by Pasquale D'Aniello beat Thailand 3-0, finished second in Pool D and moved into the round of 16 of the World Championship. The next opponent will be Slovenia on Tuesday July 14. Within the broader July 13 news flow, that gave Italy another active international storyline beyond the VNL buildup, and it did so with an immediate knockout-stage consequence already defined by the end of the day.
Taken together, the July 13 coverage presented a classic mid-summer Volleyball.it mix: a senior men's national team approaching a decisive VNL week, a senior women's team with its finals route now formalized, a domestic league adjusting its media strategy, a foreign league confronting licensing issues, and an Italian national side already moving forward in world-level competition. The common thread across the day's main stories was transition toward the next stage, whether that meant Osaka, Macao, a new media cycle, or the first elimination round of a world championship.
