Fair Play: Prior commitments and PH's new jersey

(This is the draft of my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu on May 21)
I once had a blog named “Drunk Ranting” and boy, was that blog something.  


That was before I started my footie blog seven years ago and when I started this www.cebufootball.blogspot (almost to the day), I thought, I’ll just limit this to, footie stories that see print and some other things that don’t. 


Now, I usually publish my columns in the blog, and occasionally, some columns that don’t see print.  Sometimes, when I get lazy, or I want to free up my morning—which is when I write my columns—I’d fire a blog entry the night before, then review it for a column.


I had one (click here) two days ago, and I’d be shooting myself in the foot if I submit it for today’s column as it has raised a few reactions and the replies require me to come up with something new.


In that entry, basically, I said that unless Phil and James Younghusband’s “prior commitment” that will make them miss the Malaysia friendly was signed last year, then they may be just pulling their weight.


Here’s a reply from Cathy Rivilla, who manages the Younghusbands, “Just to make things clear..the commitment they had was signed off since last year. We tried to move the date once we found out there was a friendly match but we could not.


As soon as we found out through the media that there was a game on June 1, we spoke to Coach Weiss and the brothers spoke to Dan (upon his arrival from Europe).


Rest assured, that the brothers are fully committed to the National Team, however, they could not get out of a previous MAJOR commitment (No, it is not an endorsement nor a TVC nor a photo shoot).”


And that’s that. (And a very early morning dip erases all retort) and I just hope that this will be the last time the brothers will miss a friendly (to be fair, they never miss a tourney since 2010)—because of prior commitment.  If the PFF and the management are committing a lot of resources for friendlies, then our top players, should…


I wrote, too, that “I wouldn’t bet on Kaya FC players seeing action in the June friendlies” and some have thought that it was about club and country thing.  


Well, here are the facts—Kaya will release their players for the May 21-29 senior team training camp on May 25.


Will the Kaya players missing the first four days of the camp be a factor whether they get selected or not for the June friendlies? 


That decision, ultimately, lies with the coaching staff.


And I stand by what I wrote in my blog, that I hope this issue of Kaya FC players missing the first few days of camp will be resolved  because this could get potentially ugly. We are probably going to hear more about this in the next few days.


As for the new kit provider for the national team, well, that isn’t really news isn’t it? The contract with Mizuno ended months ago, and hopefully, so too will the endless questions from fans, “where can we buy the national team jersey?”


Sanamagan, we have folks asking where they can spend P1,900 for a shirt and Mizuno’s answer is next week?


Good riddance! 


The new provider would be required to make it easy for fans to buy the jersey. And I’m not talking about fans here, but even those based abroad.


You can, if you want, buy a jersey for each of your nine lives, something Mizuno failed to do. As for the design contest, any fan—here or abroad—may submit their design proposals. Just wait for the official announcement from the men’s national team.


The training camp in the US is a go and the official news of that should come out in a few days, and, so too, is the PFF Disciplinary Committee on Cristy Ramos sexual harassment complaint against Angel Guirado and Lexton Moy.


We all thought that the committee was dragging its feet in the investigation, well, it was surprising to hear that the guys there have been doing their job and should come out with a decision soon. 


Maybe even before the June 1 friendly.