Great collapse

Great collapse | Daily Tribune

Ideally, sports is supposed to be a perfect world, a safe haven where the sole basis for excellence are the victories, medals and personal records of the athletes and teams.

But in reality, it’s not. It’s a snake pit where only the most powerful and most influential with solid politi-cal connections will survive.

That’s exactly what’s happening in Philippine football.

Over the years, the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) has been an ideal sports organization. Yes, the Philippines is not a football country, but Filipinos eventually fell in love with the beautiful game due to the hard work and dedication of ranking PFF officials.

Remember the Philippine Azkals, who made a lot of heads turn not just because of their good looks, but because of their dazzling skills and glorious finishes on the pitch? How about the Filipinas, who made history when they became the first local team to win a game in the FIFA Women’s World Cup?

It was truly the golden era of Philippine football.

Sadly, those days are gone. It seems those victories and thrilling performances that once united this fractured nation will forever be buried in the dustbin of Philippine sports history.

Things started to go sour after Mariano “Nonong” Araneta stepped down as president of the PFF in November of 2023.

Araneta, a fine gentleman who holds several key positions in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and International Football Federation, graciously gave way for the election of John Gutierrez.

But instead of continuing the program that had yielded the federation so much success, Gutierrez had other things in mind. He decided that he would run things his way.

The first to go was Dan Palami, the team manager of the Philippine Azkals.

Palami, a distinguished businessman who was responsible for the rise of Chieffy Caligdong, Phil and James Younghusband, Neil Etheridge and Stephan Schrock, stepped down a little more than a month after Gutierrez had taken over to “give him a free hand to do what he thinks is necessary for Philippine football moving forward.”

Next to resign was Jefferson Cheng, the team manager of the Filipinas.

Cheng, the driving force behind the Filipinas’ historic appearance in the World Cup, gave up his position, saying that his priorities and goals were not aligned with the new federation president’s.

Sources claim that Cheng, who spent north of P100 million to successfully run the Filipinas program, was eased out after the PFF leadership meddled in the selection process of the team that competed in the AFC Asia Cup. Cheng’s resignation rocked the federation to its core.

When he was still on top of the Filipinas, the likes of Sarina Bolden, Sarah Eggesvik, and Chandler and Olivia McDaniel became household names despite having been born abroad. When he left, the program was thrown back to the Dark Ages as nothing significant was heard from them again.

Just before the year ended, another program under the PFF umbrella crumbled.

The national women’s futsal team — known as the Pinay5 — collapsed when the PFF decided to transfer its Dutch coach, Vic Hermans, to the men’s squad over the holiday season.

Well, there was nothing wrong with transferring the coach — it was the prerogative of the federation. But doing it while Hermans was in his home in Amsterdam to celebrate the Yuletide season with his loved ones smelled like a major political powerplay.

With Hermans out, the majority of the players, led by team captain Isabella Bandoja, resigned as well, while team manager Danny Moran was upset as they were already applying the finishing touches on their preparation for the AFC Futsal Asian Cup 2025 Qualifiers in Uzbekistan.

But the resignations appeared to be the green light the PFF had been waiting for.

Swiftly, federation officials called for a press conference to introduce the composition of its new team with a new coach in Spaniard Rafa Merino Rodriguez. It seemed that everything had been carefully plotted all along.

And to make sure that no one from the media would cry about the great injustice done to the Pinay5, Gutierrez fired a warning that had a chilling effect on those who wanted to raise an objection: Please behave.

What’s going on in Philippine football? The federation that used to be the envy of other national sports associations for its well-run programs, solid support from its international federation, honest officials and media-savvy quality athletes appears to be doomed.

Hopefully, the PFF can bounce back before it suffers a great collapse.