Dear Manila, get your acts together will you?

IN December 2012, the UFL sent a letter requesting for sanction for its Youth League from the NCRFA, which,  four months later, is using such request as a reason to question how things are run in the UFL.

Dear NCRFA football stakeholders, get your acts together, will you?  

Elvira Lozano, a board member of the NCRFA, told Bob Guerrero, “The issue is the structure of governance in the UFL. We cannot discuss a youth football league or any other project until we deal with this issue.”



Is that issue?  

Isn't the issue about the UFL Youth League and how, four months after their request, there's still no sanction?

What is a sanction?  It is simply a local FA recognizing a local tournament and providing it with referees allied with the FA.

How long does it take to get a sanction? Before this UFL Youth League impasse, it's a gen-sec function, not a board function, at least that's what in practice.  A tournament organizer writes a letter to the local FA requesting for sanction, and once the letter is received, it is approved. At least, that's the case in Cebu, and, I learned, that's the case in Manila too for one tournament organizer who's request for sanction was immediately granted.

The PFF, too, has been telling local FAs to encourage tournament organizers to have their events sanctioned and here you have an organizer asking for sanction and getting rebuffed.

Mrs. Lozano said some of their clubs are complaining that UFL teams are raiding the "older youth clubs" for members, and said such practice is detrimental to youth development.  

Oh really now? 

This from an FA that is the no. 1 pirate of players from the provinces?  Just ask their member schools.  It's OK to pirate players, just as long you don't pirate our players? Is that it?

It is interesting, too, how the issue of the PFF Smart Cup was brought up.  I learned from Cyril Dofitas that 10 slots were to be given to the qualifiers from the UFL Cup, and I have no problem with that, the UFL being the top tier club competition in the country.  

But for the NCRFA to think that 10 of the 16 slots in the Smart Club national finals should come from them?  What arrogance. 

Ten from just one FA, while the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao only get six?  

When then PFF President Johnny Romualdez batted for the breaking up of the NCRFA, the move wasn't supported because everybody knew it was a  personal agenda.  But he did make a compelling argument, why give the NCRFA the undue advantage by allowing it to continue existing?  While the other FAs only have a city, or a province as its territory, the NCRFA has the whole National Capitol Region.

What is ironic here is that while the NCRFA engages the UFL on a pissing contest on who has the right to run a youth football league--for the development of youth football--some 1,500 kids are left hanging.

Dear Manila football stakeholders, get your acts together will you?