Volleyball twins start new chapter of career together in Azerbaijan

Once stars of Korea’s national volleyball team, twin sisters Lee Jae-yeong and Lee Da-yeong have been left to roam from one overseas league to another after a highly publicized school violence scandal broke out in 2021. This time, they are heading to Azerbaijan.

“Outside hitter Lee Jae-yeong has joined the club,” Turan VC — part of the Azerbaijan Women’s Volleyball Super League — revealed on Aug. 4. 

Three days later, the club announced that it had signed her younger twin sister, setter Lee Da-yeong.

The sisters left Korea last Friday and were scheduled to join the team on Monday. 

Lee Jae-yeong and Lee Da-yeong followed in the footsteps of their mother, Kim Kyung-hee, a former national volleyball player, to represent Korea on the court.

The sisters played together for the Incheon Heungkuk Life Insurance Volleyball Club Pink Spiders in the V-League. They were also widely regarded as potential successors to volleyball legend Kim Yeon-koung as the faces of Korean women’s volleyball. Kim Yeon-Koung was a pivotal force in helping the national team reach the semifinals during both the 2012 and 2020 Summer Olympics. She has also played professionally in Japan, Turkey and China. 

But the twins’ careers went into a tailspin in 2021 after allegations that they had physically and verbally assaulted their teammates in middle school surfaced online. The Pink Spiders eventually released them and the Korea Volleyball Association indefinitely barred them from representing the national team.

Both sisters then joined the Greek team PAOK Thessaloniki in 2021, but their paths soon diverged.

Lee Da-yeong went on to play in leagues in Romania, France and the United States, while Lee Jae-yeong returned home early due to a chronic knee injury. The latter appeared to be headed for retirement, but she ultimately returned to the court, joining the Japanese club Victorina Himeji in July last year.

Last season, Lee Jae-yeong appeared in 24 matches and 42 sets and scored 108 points. Despite her limited playing time, she posted respectable numbers, with a 35.8 percent attack success rate and 41.5 percent serve-reception efficiency. After her one-year contract with Himeji expired, she considered offers from several leagues before accepting the one from Turan.

“She had lost confidence after being sidelined for a long time by an injury,” a representative from Lee Jae-yeong’s agency said. “After playing [in Japan] for a year, she recovered both physically and mentally to some extent, which led her to take on the challenge of playing in a European league.”

Turan won the domestic league title in the 2025-26 season — the first season after its founding — and secured a place in Europe’s CEV Champions League playoffs. Clubs that advance past the second and third playoff rounds will reach the 20-team main competition.

Whether the twins will ever return to play in Korea remains uncertain. The Korean Volleyball Federation never imposed a separate severe punishment, such as a permanent ban, so both are eligible to sign with any club.

The decisive factor is likely to be public sentiment. The Pepper Savings Bank AI Peppers, which had been founded as the V-League’s seventh club and has since disbanded, approached Lee Jae-yeong ahead of the 2022-23 season but abandoned the move following public backlash.

“The two players themselves are well aware that returning to play in Korea will not be easy,” an insider of the volleyball league said. “The fact that they were unable to reach a settlement with the victims when the controversy first erupted remains a major obstacle.”

BY KIM HYO-KYOUNG [[email protected]]