Fair Play: When stupid football heads attack

WE ALL know some football fans, sometimes, are an embarrassment to the sport.

Beating up a kid for wearing the other team’s jersey? Done that.

Throwing a coin at the linesman for a wrong call? Ditto.

Charging a ref for a non-call on a penalty? That too.

It’s too bad that a stupid dude decided to show the tennis world how rowdy football fans can be in one of the sports’s grandest stage—the French Open finals between Roger Federer and Robin Soderling.

The guy probably thought he was being funny. But after the Monica Seles incident, things like this aren’t funny.

And Monica Seles was the first thing on the mind of most fans who are old enough to remember the 1993 stabbing.

Clad in red and waving an FC Barcelona flag, he tried to force Federer to wear a red hat. After escaping the guards the first two times, he jumped over the net, lost his balance and was met by a vicious tackle that one reporter said “would have made a rugby union player proud.”

At first, I thought it was that crazy German “football consultant,” but CNN said the guy was a known prankster in Europe.

Well, that prankster got his 15 minutes of fame, and Roland Garros, and other tennis venues, will now be watching out for his ilk.

FESTIVALS. In local soil, some footballers are also quite hard to understand. (Crazy is too strong a word.) Somebody announced in my blog their school’s coming football festival, and as predicted, somebody disses the event, calling it a money-making scheme.

It’s not new. It’s a recurring theme. It’s probably true in some cases and not in others.

Disgruntled footballers see it as a scheme because of the registration fees for the teams, but do organizers of these festivals have the right to charge fees?

They do, they can. Tough luck.

If this was organized in Polomolok, the group would have been hailed as heroes. Since it is in Cebu, they are considered good-for-nothing and money-hungry bastards.

If the fees are too high, then teams can opt not to join. Without the teams, there are no tournaments.

The Cebu Football Association can’t organize a tournament covering every weekend. Heck, without these festivals, teams will be lucky to play in one tournament in a year.

Some footballers in Cebu are a funny bunch. They want to play in all tournaments and want them for free. They want organizers to be world-class, but can’t even follow a simple instruction like “pass the lineup on time.”

One common comment I often hear from players and from visitors are “Cebuano footballers don’t know how lucky they are. They have lots of tournaments and they get a lot of media mileage.”

The first is still true, the second isn’t anymore—but that’s a different story.

PARTNERS CUP DEATH. The Partners Cup for football was supposed to start last May 30, but it has since been moved (indefinitely?) because of lack of interest. Only two teams were available.

Hmmm.

The director of the event is Jonathan Maximo, the former president of the CebuFA, which has since decided to call itself anew as the CFA. The current board has complained that its former president’s event isn’t in their calendar and Maximo didn’t coordinate with them.

I may be out of touch of the football beat, but I can still pretty much read between the lines and it seems the current board is saying, “You won’t bother coordinating with us, we won’t join your event.”

There is no way of sugar-coating this, but the animosity between the current board and the previous president is not good for collegiate football.

And the snub on the Partners Cup isn’t either.

I thought it was about time Cesafi recognized football’s importance by organizing a separate event for the sport.

With this snub, it may turn out the Cesafi was right in ignoring the sport.

Comments

Eddie said…
I don't care if they charge sky high registration fees as long as we get our money's worth. These problems had been there since the first festival way back the time of Maximo and the complaints were still the same.

Because of the lack of tournaments here in Cebu we are held bound by this unscrupulous organizers pretending to developers of football when actually is engaging in a money making venture.
Jason said…
Why is CFA making a fuss about CESAFI not coordinating with them? What about this USP Festival? IS it in the calendar of activities of the CFA? The reason is very clear. CFA is just politicking. They can't accept the fact that Maximo is a mile better than them in terms of organization.
sugbo said…
it's so easy to say that organizers of festivals are up for the money alone and not football development, well so far nobody had the guts to really scrutinize such group and see if they really did made money out of the festivals.

as a footballer for now i would always give it the benefit of the doubt, what i see is that more football is being played in cebu even if it's just the festival type there are even months that week after week my team would be playing 7 a-side tourneys. thanks to the money making schemes of the organizers.
sugbo said…
"There is no way of sugar-coating this, but the animosity between the current board and the previous president is not good for collegiate football.

And the snub on the Partners Cup isn’t either."


Partners Cup Death, this one is something that i don't quite understand. Why would a well planned CUP with a decent budget be postponed or be affected by CFA's cold treatment? Small time Festivals don't get postponed if CFA won't sanction it. The only logical reason i see fit for now is probably the colleges themselves don't see the mutual advantage of the partners cup reason why only a few inlisted. Or it could be that some teams are not just ready for the competitive demands of the cup yet.

i just hope that this cup will kick-off soon so that we will see another type of cup played here in Cebu.
Josh said…
sugbo Says: June 11th, 2009 at 8:35 pm

it’s so easy to say that organizers of festivals are up for the money alone and not football development, well so far nobody had the guts to really scrutinize such group and see if they really did made money out of the festivals.||

The number of participants and sponsors in every festival is enough gauge that this undertaking is making money.

Football development? I dont think so. Football promotion. Can be.
sugbo said…
once you promote a sport and people start playing it then you are developing the sport in that locale. for intance in football the festivals helped in the multiple number of games played in a year, development of the sport as far as exposure to the sport is concerned, is exactly what festivals are doing. more touches with the ball in football equates to football development. more games played in a seven a side setup is still football development.

football promotion is when you only advertise the sport without the games being played
Jun said…
How can there be more touches on the ball in the festival when you only have 15 minutes of play? Deduct the time you retrieve the ball when it goes of bounds. Roughly you have you have 10 minutes of what we say real football time. How are you going to divide that if you have 12 players in your team? Is this your idea of football development?
luckystrike said…
its better to have 15 or 10 minutes than nothing at all. i agree with mike's earlier observation that cebu players do not appreciate the fact that we have more tournaments than in other places. i talked to a board member of mis.occ/ozamiz f.a. a month ago. he told me he was excited because they were going to join a festival in dapitan. which is about 100km away and thats the only tournament they will be probably be joining during the first half of 2009. now if you think you are not getting your money's worth by joining a particular festival, then dont join it. thats we do in our team. we're into a sport that is not that popular and no paying spectators, so sorry for us. the organizers only inflow is registration fees since nowadays sponsors dont give cash anymore. dont expect organizers to shell out their own money for festivals. of course, they make money but this is not much...considering that the high cost of referreing. we should patronize the good tournaments and junk lousy ones and that i agree. this is a free country and competition among organizers should only redown for the benefit of the sport
andre said…
daghan ba ug reklamo oi. kaduwa ko ug football tournament sauna wa man toi bayad. wala pud to nahitabo na gi tando nga apil na daw dayon gi balibaran. ang usa pud sa rason ba ngano nang reklamo ni cla sa bayad kay basin wa cla kahibaw unsa ila gi bayran, lugar? referee? bola? ug unsa pa. naa man gud to nag organize nga ang bayad padung daw sa street children.
oger said…
EXCERPT:
RE-Football FESTIVAL


As we all know that football festival is small sided games to be played in a minimal bleow standard field that organizers can modify the rules,time,size of goals and others except for the BALL..

Maximo made a festival, the new CFA did not made 1. Yes, we all know that these festivals are also gaining profits.

DO THE MATH!

If you are an organizer (s) with-out a sponsor then you still can organize a tournament. By collecting entrance fees from every team you can start a tournament. That registration fees can subsidize the tournament BUT,do not expect to be that kinda fun tournament e.g the recent USP Football Festival (to be honest)

Then summarizing all the expenses including the high paid referees with low class performance per day. the organizers in my calculations have a profit of 5-10K... its up to the organizers if he still have any other bills to pay.

a festival with a commercial sponsor is good. the organizers don't have to worry about expenses. plus the registration fees are all in his hands depending on the aggreement between the organizers and the commercial sponsor. BUT, make sure the tournament is worth it for the 1. sponsors 2. Teams who paid their reg fees 3. Teams which they think the tournament is much what they are looking for.

Most of the teams want more minutes = Ok no problem with that
Most Teams want "No entrance Fees" or Low Fees" = It's not your concern. The organizers make a tournament if you find the tournament not worthy then do not join. Put yourselves on the shoes of the organizers, if no teams in their tourneys then their drive for making good festivals will boosts so that they people may like their event. but if nobody will join then their homework is unacceptable and poor.

Ang sa ato lang gud kay naay tournament mag bagol-bol sa entrance fee. Unya mo apil lang diay gihapon...useless!. dili mo ganahan mo apil sa nagpaliga ayaw mo og apil... RELATE yourselves to "PERSONA NON GRATA"

If these poor tournaments will be ignored then no one tend to show their face to make another tournament unless their making a good one next time.

Ana lang gud.. YES! PROFITABLE and festival WHILE promoting the SPORT and DEVELOPING the players... Still BUT, it comes with a price and consequences to your pocket and emotional satisfaction. After all we cannot please everyone.

I urged to all CFA members mostly the tournament organizers.

OK RANA MO BAYAD MIG DAKO SA ENTRANCE FEE BASTA make sure na SULIT ang among gibayad. No need for cash prize. what the teams needs are;

1. Fine Scheduling
2. Good Officiating
3. With Medals for Champion Team & a THROPY
4. Rules & Regulation oriented to all
5. Well-planned tournament so there were no major problems on the day with a minimum GLITCHES to be encountered


So far kanag lang cguro...then to all teams/players and individuals try to do the math so you can understand the organizers also. There is no such thing is FREE!....
3.
andre said…
wala man cguro "perfect tournament" labi na dili kaayo popular ang football sa cebu then gamai ra ang mga tao and organizations mo support. anyway na lingaw rman ta ug dua mao ra jud nay important and mag try ta ug improve as organizers and as players para ma hapsay na sa sunud.

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