ANS football team's suspension
Francis Ramirez, and the ANS football team has been suspended from joining tournaments for a year after joining the POF festival in Dumaguete.
The team, which represented Cebu province in the tournament, asked permission from their principal, who in turn, failed to inform DepEd about their participation.
The principal, in turn, admitted his lapse and is taking full responsibility for the error.
But whatever the principal says now, or in the future, the team stays suspended from the Milo Little Olympics, and sadly, the Cebu City Olympics, which it has won regularly over the years.
The Sun.Star report didn't say anything about the sanction against the erring principal, who I think, deserves to be sanctioned for sleeping on the job.
The coach, according to the report, did his. He informed the principal of the week-long tournament in Dumaguete. And the players? They did what anyone would do, follow where the coach goes.
On the other hand, though failing to inform DepED may be the official reason for the suspension, I think, ANS, which sits right smack in the middle of Cebu City, representing Cebu Province in the tournament maybe the real reason for it.
Collateral damage, you may call it, for the war between the lady governor and the city mayor.
Add to this, if my sources are correct, ANS was sponsored by Ciudad de Cebu, the project of the governor long stalled because of the falling out with Mayor Osmeña.
Football sponsorships are hard to come by, and Coach Ramirez, may have been just too thankful for a sponsor and didn't mind the political implications, it's football, not politics.
Now, he and his team sits out the rest of the year.
As to the principal?
It's interesting how the Cebu Football Association would act--if they will take such actions at all--in this matter. After all, the CebuFA is the REASON why ANS got suspended in the first place.
Why send two Cebu teams?
The team, which represented Cebu province in the tournament, asked permission from their principal, who in turn, failed to inform DepEd about their participation.
The principal, in turn, admitted his lapse and is taking full responsibility for the error.
But whatever the principal says now, or in the future, the team stays suspended from the Milo Little Olympics, and sadly, the Cebu City Olympics, which it has won regularly over the years.
The Sun.Star report didn't say anything about the sanction against the erring principal, who I think, deserves to be sanctioned for sleeping on the job.
The coach, according to the report, did his. He informed the principal of the week-long tournament in Dumaguete. And the players? They did what anyone would do, follow where the coach goes.
On the other hand, though failing to inform DepED may be the official reason for the suspension, I think, ANS, which sits right smack in the middle of Cebu City, representing Cebu Province in the tournament maybe the real reason for it.
Collateral damage, you may call it, for the war between the lady governor and the city mayor.
Add to this, if my sources are correct, ANS was sponsored by Ciudad de Cebu, the project of the governor long stalled because of the falling out with Mayor Osmeña.
Football sponsorships are hard to come by, and Coach Ramirez, may have been just too thankful for a sponsor and didn't mind the political implications, it's football, not politics.
Now, he and his team sits out the rest of the year.
As to the principal?
It's interesting how the Cebu Football Association would act--if they will take such actions at all--in this matter. After all, the CebuFA is the REASON why ANS got suspended in the first place.
Why send two Cebu teams?
Comments
Was the Inter-Club really meant in the first place as a qualifying tournament for the POF? Was it announced to the public before the tournament began that the Inter-Club will be the basis for the POF Regional? If so, then why the confusion of sending 2 teams?
So whats the effect now of ANS being suspended? Cebu Football will not be able to tap these players to play for Cebu in future regional/national tournaments such as CVIRAA, Palaro, etc.
Bad decision indeed.
As for the coach, he should be more responsible enough that his team is from Cebu City and not from the Cebu Province. In thier CVIRAA, Palaro campaigns, it was the Cebu City Government who spent for them. What lessons does he want to impart to his players and the public? That it is OK to misrepresent and get away with it?
Who has the last laugh now?
Ayaw ilara si Tomas doh!
Also the statement by the coach that it was only during the managers' meeting that he was forced to put Cebu Province as his team because another team was already representing Cebu City, was, to call it nicely, a bit of a stretch.
Their having prepared Ciudad de Cebu uniforms beforehand, exposes it.
The competition is sanctioned by the different sport-bodies. Teams representing the LGU's needs to be recognized by the sport-bodies to qualify for the tournament. It is not required for the LGU's to have to conduct a qualifying tournament, although it is the discretion of the FA if they will only recognize 1 representative within their domain if they so wish it.
The problem with the Cebu representation was that we did not have a qualifying tournament, that everybody agreed on would determine the Cebu representation. The CebuFA assigned Ceniza to lead the POF U17, Bono for the U15.
What turned things topsyturvy was the decision by Ramirez to field ANS to represent Cebu Province, on the basis that the POF is LGU-based and that any LGU can send a team or any team can represent an LGU. Check the POF rulebook - this is a loophole the Titanic can easily sail thru. I questioned the wisdom of this rule during the 2007 regionals and all I got for an answer was - "we will look into it".
Never mind the actual political boundaries. This rule made it impossible to properly and ethically determine who qualifies to represent which. In hindsight, it perhaps would have been wise if CebuFA endorsed just one Cebu team (the POF does not accept teams that are not endorsed by the FA), but the technicality there is that, AGAIN, any LGU can send it's own team. CebuFA cannot just turn it's back away from Cebu province and deny it their rights if it wants it's own team to be endorsed by the FA. The CebuFA domain is the entire Cebu province - thus in this case, they had no choice but to follow the POF rules and endorsed the Cebu province team.
This is just one of the problems when the FA and DepEd doesn't have a good working relationship. I hope both parties will sit down and thresh things out. The announcement last week that the PSC, POC and DepED will get together to synchronize our sporting events should be a good step.
If my sources are right, only the ANS team and it's players are suspended in DepED competitions (which will cover only the Milo and City Olympics secondary level). The reinforcements from other schools/teams are not. As I was told, this was an ANS-DepED problem.
As far as ANS participation to CebuFA sanctioned tornaments, it would depend on ANS if the allow their players and coach to participate. CebuFA is club based, not school. And DepED sanctions are not automatically recognized by CebuFA UNLESS the school AND the FA agrees to honor any sanction made by both parties.
A couple of years back, when CFA suspended Ramirez, he and ANS still competed in the DepED competitions because DepED did not recognize CFA authority over their football competitions. Again, that's the disadvantage of having NO working relationship between FA and DepED.
What IloiloFA did was to endorse the Sta.Barbara and Barotac Nuevo selection as the Iloilo Province and, I think it was the La Paz/Jaro players, as the Iloilo City team. At least on their part, they had the LGU-political representation correct.
As a result of this, I would strongly recommend to the CebuFA that even if there will be no rule changes for the 2009 POF, CebuFA should only endorse ONE Cebu team, to be determined via a qualifying tournament. The decision to determine which LGU to represent should come later.
What we did during the 2007 POF was to approach the LGU AFTER we got confirmation from PFF and POF-organizers that we will be representing Cebu. When the Cebu City Sports Commission agreed to partially sponsor the team during the regionals (by the way, the bulk of the sponsorship for the regionals came from private individuals and parents and not from the city), that was when we carried the name of Cebu City, all thru the Nationals. At that point in time, we were still on the understanding that the competition was FA based and not LGU-based, thus we did not consider asking for LGU assistance beforehand, nor were we aware that it was an LGU based competition.
Sad enough that we have to scrounge for sponsors. Sadder still that we have to be careful not to ruffle anyone's ego or "territory". But if it is true, Ramirez will have to take a miniscule part of the blame. He was afterall assigned to head Team Cebu City. And even if that team may have already been disbanded, he should have been more tactful in approaching sponsors. He is also under DepED Cebu City as is ANS.
The absence of the ANS players in DepEd competitions will be a big blow for us in the CVIRAA games. That team is already a solid team, and even if the team didn't win the City Olympics, at least 5-6 players are shoo-ins as reinforcements for any team that may represent Cebu.
Francis made a tactless move, the Principal made a huge oversight.
The city and the province ? Hah, just like two kids in a playground standoff - mine, mine, mine, mine.
No wonder we are running around as smoothly as a car on square wheels.