Lee Da-yeong set to join French club Volero Le Cannet

Korean volleyball player Lee Da-yeong looks set to join French volleyball club Volero Le Cannet for the 2023-24 season.

Lee Da-yeong, right, with her twin sister Lee Jae-yeong when they both played for the Heungkuk Life Insurance Pink Spiders in 2021. [YONHAP]

Korean volleyball player Lee Da-yeong looks set to join French volleyball club Volero Le Cannet for the 2023-24 season.

French magazine Block-Out named the 26-year-old as a completed signing of Volero Le Cannet earlier this week, although the club is yet to confirm the announcement.

Lee Da-yeong has played for Rapid Bucuresti in the Romanian league since the beginning of the 2022-23 season.

Lee Da-yeong, one half of the infamous Lee twins, made her pro debut at Suwon Hyundai Engineering & Construction Hillstate in the Korean V League in 2014 and played there until joining the Heungkuk Life Insurance Pink Spiders in 2020.

Despite showing an outstanding performance alongside her twin sister Lee Jae-yeong at the Pink Spiders, both were forced to leave the team after being embroiled in a scandal in February, 2021, when former middle school teammates accused them of being bullies when in school, listing 21 specific allegations including claims that one of the sisters threatened them with a knife.

Lee Da-yeong then joined Greek club PAOK Thessaloniki and played the entire 2021-22 season, before moving to Rapid Bucuresti ahead of the 2022-23 season.

She seemed to adapt to the Romanian league in the beginning, but disappeared from the roster after suffering multiple injuries during the season.

A back injury she picked up at the end of the season forced her to come back to Korea for treatment.

With her future at the Romanian side looking unclear, she chose to move to Volero Le Cannet.

Volero Le Cannet, formed by Swiss team Volero Zurich merging with French team Le Cannet-Rocheville in 2018, won the French Cup in 2022 as well as French Championship in 2022 and 2023.

A few foreign players in the V League have also played for the French team before, including former Gwangju AI Peppers opposite hitter Nia Reed and former Gimcheon Korea Expressway Hi-Pass outside hitter Katarina Jovic.

Both Lee sisters remain ineligible to compete in the Korean national team regardless of their form, as the team indefinitely suspended the pair and also banned them from ever holding coaching positions after the bullying case first broke.

Once Volero Le Cannet officially announces the signing of Lee Da-yeong, she will jet off to France this summer to train with the team ahead of the upcoming 2023-24 season.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]