New rule hampers Cebu
THE new guidelines from the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) is preventing Queen City United coach Dexter Arrojado from putting up a stronger backline in the PFF National Women's Open Championships in Dumaguete City.
Ironically the regulation--which sets the minimum age in the tournament at 16--was set to level the playing field and to separate the young girls from the women's.
"There's already a national competition for the young girls, so that's why the PFF set the new guidelines," Cebu Football Association president Jonathan Maximo said in an earlier interview.
Among those affected by the lineup is defender Gabi Aboitiz from Cebu International School.
"Aboitiz is very useful, she's tall and experienced and she doesn't get scared," said Queen City United coach Dexter Arrojado.
QCU needs to beef up its defense for the National finals to avoid a repeat of a humbling 0-5 loss to Davao City in the finals last year in Davao.
This year's nationals will also have an entry from the National Capitol Region for the first time, while the rest of the team will be mostly Visayas and Mindanao-based.
Queen City, which earned the right to represent Cebu after topping the just concluded Aboitiz Women's Cup, will reinforce their team with players from Cebu International School, San Roque and the University of San Carlos.
CIS players Stephanie Sharpe, who played for San Roque in the Women's Cup, and Presley Cunningham will join schoolmate Gabi Mercado, who plays for Queen City.
Former Queen City plauyer Carmel Colina will also beef up the squad, together with USC's Courtney Cangue.
The team will leave for Dumaguete this Saturday in time for a one-day rest before hostilities open on Monday.
Ironically the regulation--which sets the minimum age in the tournament at 16--was set to level the playing field and to separate the young girls from the women's.
"There's already a national competition for the young girls, so that's why the PFF set the new guidelines," Cebu Football Association president Jonathan Maximo said in an earlier interview.
Among those affected by the lineup is defender Gabi Aboitiz from Cebu International School.
"Aboitiz is very useful, she's tall and experienced and she doesn't get scared," said Queen City United coach Dexter Arrojado.
QCU needs to beef up its defense for the National finals to avoid a repeat of a humbling 0-5 loss to Davao City in the finals last year in Davao.
This year's nationals will also have an entry from the National Capitol Region for the first time, while the rest of the team will be mostly Visayas and Mindanao-based.
Queen City, which earned the right to represent Cebu after topping the just concluded Aboitiz Women's Cup, will reinforce their team with players from Cebu International School, San Roque and the University of San Carlos.
CIS players Stephanie Sharpe, who played for San Roque in the Women's Cup, and Presley Cunningham will join schoolmate Gabi Mercado, who plays for Queen City.
Former Queen City plauyer Carmel Colina will also beef up the squad, together with USC's Courtney Cangue.
The team will leave for Dumaguete this Saturday in time for a one-day rest before hostilities open on Monday.
Comments
one of the reasons why the Coke-Go-for-Goal project was canned (pardon the pun) by the sponsor was because at the qualifying tournaments, some FA's allowed teams to field players 2-3 years below the cut-off age. this was done so that more teams can participate because the organizers wanted to report that there were more teams thus the budget for the qualifying tournament has to be increased (hence, more money to be pocketed). yup, overage players was not the only issue - underage players were too.
seeing this, the sponsors got worried that the physically immature players may get injured and it would reflect on them. this was one of the reasons why the project was halted.
there is no significant amount of money that can be pocketed in the Ladies Nationals, so i'll leave financial gains out of the discussion. i guess only the honor of representing the province or FA is at stake. i think the concern of the PFF is that having underaged or physically immature players participating will result in lop-sided games, possible injuries, and a general low-quality tournament as far as skills and tactics are concerned.
if such is the thinking of the sponsors (safety and play-quality), i would have to disagree with them. i don't thing our coaches will risk sending players who are still to young and unready for the more physical game at the Ladies Open level. if the coaches feel that Gabi is ready for the Ladies Open and she (along with her parents) feel that she can hack it, then she should be allowed to play.
Addu at 15 was allowed to play in the MLS despite criticism from the anti-child exploitation groups in the US. i look at Gabi's situation in the same light. true, a minor's safety has to rule above any other interests, but their is always the exception to the rule.
if Gabi is ready and willing (and with her parent's approval), she should be allowed to play.
one of the reasons why the Coke-Go-for-Goal project was canned (pardon the pun) by the sponsor was because at the qualifying tournaments, some FA's allowed teams to field players 2-3 years below the cut-off age. this was done so that more teams can participate because the organizers wanted to report that there were more teams thus the budget for the qualifying tournament has to be increased (hence, more money to be pocketed). yup, overage players was not the only issue - underage players were too.
seeing this, the sponsors got worried that the physically immature players may get injured and it would reflect on them. this was one of the reasons why the project was halted.
there is no significant amount of money that can be pocketed in the Ladies Nationals, so i'll leave financial gains out of the discussion. i guess only the honor of representing the province or FA is at stake. i think the concern of the PFF is that having underaged or physically immature players participating will result in lop-sided games, possible injuries, and a general low-quality tournament as far as skills and tactics are concerned.
if such is the thinking of the organizers (safety and play-quality), i would have to disagree with them. i don't think our coaches will risk sending players who are still to young and unready for the more physical game at the Ladies Open level. if the coaches feel that Gabi is ready for the Ladies Open and she (along with her parents) feel that she can hack it, then she should be allowed to play.
Addu at 15 was allowed to play in the MLS despite criticism from the anti-child exploitation groups in the US. even michael sharpe played for our U19 when he was still only 15 years old. i look at Gabi's situation in the same light. true, a minor's safety has to rule above any other interests, but their is always the exception to the rule.
if Gabi is ready and willing (and with her parent's approval), she should be given the chance to play.
They just had the PFF U-17 Championship for younger girls...
now at least klaro. naay qualifying. winning team will have right to represent cebu. winning coach has privilege to name his players. coach also has option to get players from outside his team.
this will strenghten the club system kay teams/clubs now are given opportunity to play outside cebu. they have higher motivation now.
some might say dexter arrojado is not the best womens coach in cebu, but Dexter and his QC Utd squad won the local qualifying fair and square. that is something we have to respect. they earned it. as to his choice of players & reinforcements, its up to them. its their call. good move cebu football
like what i've been saying, teams should earn the right to represent cebu. i don't believe in tryouts for tournaments that leaves the team so little time to know each other's moves and gel.
i disagree however with part of carmel's statement, that cebu football is "fair" right now. the previous administration played favorites - the incumbent administration also have their own favorites. look beyond the benefits you or your club may be getting right now and try to see what chances the other teams are being denied of.
only when we have a balanced CebuFA board with members that have a clear idea of what is wrong and what we should do about it can we say that cebufootball is truly improving.
now is not the time to act naive. cebuFa has no program for us to follow. i'm sure you have the football savy to know that tournaments - organized or sanctioned - is not a program. and handpicked players and coaches does not make a CebuFA team a true representative of CebuFootball.
i'll just repeat what i said earlier and in part because you opened the topic. a big part of the solution regarding favoritism is bracket champions earning the right to represent cebufootball. inclusion in Cebu teams are not like inheritances you get from your parents or relatives. you earn the right to represent cebu because you earned it, not because it was handed down to you or fed thru a golden spoon.
i once attended a CebuFA meeting and someone pointed this out. you know what the answer was - "there are schools or teams that cannot form an eleven a side team so we will not have full size tournaments anymore for these brackets". carmel, if this is not favoritism then i don't know what it is.
clubs, schools and teams have programs that prefers 11 a side. how come CebuFA declared,thru their policies, that their programs does not deserve tournaments from them.
you approved of the policies of the CebuFA so i will presume that you basically know all their policies so here are other things to ponder on.
three (?) years ago, a new division was introduced, player9 when there was already a player8 and a player10. because of the added expenses caused by setting up another division, other divisions where forced to bracketing thus teams only played 2 games each instead of the previous 4-5 games. ask yourself this - why create another division when the overall impact was so disadvantageous to the majority.
the recent Ladies Aboitiz Open was supposed to have an Under17 team right ? there was supposed to be tryouts for that team yet before open try-outs happened, out came CebuFA and declared that the previous U17 team will still be the CebuFA U17 team. i thought that CebuFA representation will be based on whoever wins the qualifying championship. as far as the new football season goes, we haven't have a Ladies U17 tournament yet. so how come they declared that the previous team will still represent CebuFootball ?
carmel, nothing personal against your siding with CebuFA. but blatant mistakes in policies cannot be ignored. other FA's in the region (iloilo, NOFA and NORFA) are miles ahead of us and their footballing quality is great. that's because the FA's have a development program that was formulated with all sectors taking part. we don't have such a program here. how can you then support a "cebu football has improved" statement when in fact cebufootball has shrunk. what used to be tournaments have degenerated into mere festivals. i don't call that an "improvement".
PFF introduced for 1st time this year 2006 National Womens U-17 (born 1990). Since it was 1st time, CebuFA did not have a local qualifying so CIS was asked to represent Cebu since they won practically all Girls-17 festivals here (aboitiz, Thirsty, CIS Friendship, Dumaguete, etc). with players like Gabi Aboitiz, Stephanie Sharpe, Gabby Mercado, Cunningham, etc. Fair enough? Since it was a CIS core team, naturally its their CIS coach, Elying Toledo, who decides the players that will be included in the team, either all-CIS or players from other clubs. Its their call. What I know of, Toledo got some players from San Roque & Sacred Heart. CebuFA has nothing to do with that. Its still the same system when QC Utd won Womens Open, coach Dexter choose the players he thinks that can help the team. Fair enough?
Again the same system used when CebuFA asked SHS-J/Don Bosco to represent Cebu in Mens U-17 last year (2005) in Dumaguete and Don Bosco in Mens U-19 last year (2005) in Iloilo. Coaches Vince Ramos and Glen Ramos chose their own players. CebuFA did not meddle in the selection. Why did CebuFA let SHS-J and Don Bosco represent Cebu? Because they were the champions in the previous qualifying tournaments. Fair enough?
So what other "favoratism" are you talking about?
1. there was no mention by me or any other poster that the U17 team being refered to is a team of Queen City United. the U17 team refered to is the CebuFA U17 team.
2. before the Ladies Open started, CebuFA announced thru a press statement which saw print in the three major local dailies that they wanted to field the U17 team that recently went to San Carlos City for the Nationals in this year's Aboitiz Women's Open as part of their training since the same team will represent CebuFA in the next U17 tournament.
3. again check statements issued by CebuFA - the reason why CIS formed the core of the recent U17 team was because they won all 7 a side titles that could be won. if you checked previous comments in this blog, i myself agreed with that decision not only because they earned it but also because i acknowleged the talent of the girls.
4. again check statements made by CebuFA prior to the just concluded Ladies Open. they announced that there will be an open tryout for the next Ladies U17 team. my assesment on the tryout was that since this is the start of a new football season, that would mean the formation of a new U17 team to be formed thru open tryouts or thru a qualifying tournament with the champion team forming the core of the team. again check the posts - having Elying and Dexter as coaches of the team was never questioned. check this blog and you will see several posts regarding this matter.
what was posted as a criticsm on the supposed U17 team for this season was the claim of some quarters that the previous U17 team should be retained. the comment i made was that there was already an announcement made by CebuFA that they will be holding tryouts for the U17 team. i hope you can now see the conflicting announcements. if CebuFA intends to retain the same players to form the next U17 team then why bother with the announcement of an open tryout. try to explain that to me.
now, if it is the intention of CebuFA, as a matter of policy, that this particular group of players will represent CebuFA again this year then i hope they just say so. why do they have to announce try-outs when the same team will be fielded. again carmel, read the posts slowly so you'll understand the reasoning - the basis of the arguement is that try-outs were announced, thus logic dictates that there is still no team.
doing so would be tantamount to letting Hiroshi represent CebuFA for several National competitions just because they won the 2006 Aboitiz League or letting the Springdale P15 team represent CebuFA in the PFF U19 just because they won last years' Aboitiz P15 Cup or for letting the Don Bosco P12 team represent CebuFA for the 2007Red Ribbon P14 just because they won all P12 titles last year.
5. i don't know why you are bothering to bring up champion teams representing Cebu. again read my posts and i hope you will understand that i agree with that policy. what i don't agree on is forming a team thru tryouts when there is not enough time for the team to gel.
other "favoritism stuff" ? check out the P9 and return to the Ladies U17 issues first. but if you have made up your mind that the incumbent CebuFA is the best thing that ever happened to CebuFootball then don't bother, this exchange will never end. anyway, good for you that you see CebuFA as excellent leaders.
carmel, please check out the comments posted based on issues presented by Mike on this blog or reports which saw print. your reactions would be more informative if you do.