Courtesy: Business Mirror


Unfair play

Written by Bleachers’ Brew / Rick Olivares

Sunday, 08 February 2009

TWO point four million pesos. That’s the amount the team has spent since 2005 to play futsal and represent our country in several international competitions. And there are 14 of them on the Philippine Women’s National Futsal Team.

The money comes from life savings, salaries from their day jobs, allowances, donations, sponsorships and earnings from endless garage sales, newspaper and pep bottle drives. Oh, and that includes one Suzuki Grand Vitara that fetched for P220,000.

Coach Manny Batungbacal sold his only car just to pay for the fare and fees of several of his players so they could make the trip to the 2007 Southeast Asian Games (SEA) in Nakhon Ratchasima (although the futsal matches were held in Bangkok).

Seven hundred eighty hours of training a year. That’s basic and not counting the extra time the team puts in extra training and competitions. A few have day jobs while some are finishing up their studies. Three of them are still playing with the Far Eastern University squad in the ongoing University Athletic Association of the Philippines women’s football tournament.

Their (mis)adventures abroad are the stuff of legend. Almost zero support from the Philippine Football Federation (PFF). They stuff their bags with canned goods when going abroad for international competitions. They scrimp and take as much bottles of water they get—which is free—during games. Without fanfare, they take the cheapest flights in and out of Manila and share beds in small hotel rooms that are meant for only one or two persons.

Instead, for their efforts and sacrifices, what they receive are reprimands from various PFF officials and endless intrigues. Shame on them when only two officials have watched them play: one was practice while another was one game.

Hmm. The games. If they aren’t the most skilled of athletes as some officials claim, then why is it that they’ve beaten just about every women’s futsal squad in the country?

Oh, and they are the only Filipino football team in our more than 100-year association with the sport to bring home a medal. They won a bronze medal in the 2007 SEA Games by beating Malaysia, 3-1.

In that same tournament, the Malaysian coach used them as an example for his team to emulate team discipline considering what they all went through just to get to Thailand.

Still the PFF brass unceremoniously sacked their coaches—Batungbacal and assistant Paul Encarnacion—on Wednesday, February 4, “since they were never the appointed coaches anyway.”

At the same time Batungbacal was being sacked, Jose Mari Martinez, PFF president, also declared all the committees under the association vacant and void yet he retained futsal chairman Esmaeil Sedigh to reorganize the futsal team and committee. Incredibly, members of all the committees only received the notice from the PFF the day after via e-mail and text.

All the athletes immediately resigned that same day not because their coaches were sacked (“Because that is management’s prerogative even if it’s inaccurate and unfair,” as team captain Ria Tanjangco vociferously pointed out) but because of the shoddy, unfair and unprofessional way the PFF has gone about its business with the futsal team.

In a report made to Martinez dated November 20, 2008, Sedigh, an Iranian national living in the country, cited the following infractions:

1) Ignoring protocol and processes
2) Disrespecting authority
3) Misrepresenting the National Women’s Futsal Team
4) Joining an unsanctioned international event organized by a breakaway group
5) Besmirching the integrity and reputation of the federation through different forms of media
6) Uncooperative and impossible to work and deal with.

Batungbacal, who is also the athletic director of a prestigious university, submitted a four-page reply that was thrown out of the window and not given any consideration. He also provided hard copies of reports, memos and communiqués with PFF officials to back up his replies.

And if he was not the duly recognized coach, why was Batungbacal asked to sign a memo, dated January 31, 2009, regarding formalizing formal office communication.

The coach’s answers (of which I have given the Reader’s Digest version) were thus:

1) No handbook, manual or letter regarding proper protocol and the formation of a futsal committee was given to him or the team. When he personally asked Mr. Sedigh who was on the committee, the chairman curtly dismissed the query: “You don’t have the right to ask.” Yet, in another meeting in a previous meeting held on November 26, 2008, the PFF’s General Secretary Pablito Araneta informed all present that there is no futsal committee because it was not yet approved by the Federation’s Board of Governors.
2) Again there were no formal memorandums regarding Sedigh’s appointment or the formation of any committee.
3) This stems from the Women’s Team joining the Vikings International Futsal Cup in New Zealand from August 8 to 10, 2008, where they competed as Irok Team Philippines; a tournament that is said to be organized by a breakaway group of the international futsal body. Yet, not only did Araneta issue a memo, dated June 5, 2008, to the organizing body sanctioning the participation of the national team but he also requested Mizuno, the sponsor of the PFF, to supply the team with equipment for the competition. In the same letter, Araneta informed Mizuno’s marketing manager Jose Paolo Cagalingan “to contact head coach Mr. Emmanuel L. Batungbacal” for clarifications.

PFF officials had an issue with the team name: Irok Team Philippines. How different is that from the men’s national basketball team performing as Smart Pilipinas or the baseball team carrying the Lhuillier tag?
4) The team joined the tournament (that they paid for themselves and not by the PFF) for experience. At that point, their only international exposures were two Asian Indoor Games and the SEA Games of which the team paid all their fees and expenses (although the Philippine Sports Commission [PSC] reimbursed them for their expenses after bagging the bronze). Whether it was conducted by a breakaway group (of which they are unaware of) is beside the point. The PFF sanctioned the participation.
5) If the so-called futsal committee’s basis is the Viking tournament’s entry on the national team, it is the work of its CEO, Paul Wadsworth, and no one else. In numerous interviews with the Philippine media, the team has in no way besmirched the reputation (what reputation? It isn’t good in the first place—my comment) of the PFF. If anything, the PFF has been lacking and wanting in its support.
6) Batungbacal is the athletic director of a prestigious university. If he was “uncooperative and impossible to work with” then how did he get the job? He wrote numerous letters to the PFF and the futsal committee but not once did he receive any form of communication from the latter. If anything, the accusation is at best subjective.

The team doesn’t feel all that bad about not representing the country anymore (they simply want to set the record straight) even if it means losing the allowances that were accorded to them by the PSC after their bronze medal stint in the SEA Games. After all, they’ve done their part but will continue playing as a club team.

But for the PFF to unceremoniously dump the coaching staff and to put their efforts in bad light is a disservice not just to them but to the sport. Guess “fair play” is just nothing more than an empty slogan, eh?




Courtesy: Sports Inquirer


RP football men’s coach Cutillas quits

By Cedelf P. Tupas

09/02/2009

MANILA, Philippines—It looks like the resignation of the women’s national futsal team isn’t an isolated case at the Philippine Football Federation.

Juan Cutillas, the PFF technical director, has also quit his post due to his “total loss of confidence” in the leadership of Jose Mari Martinez.

This developed as Martinez declared all the committee chairmanships in the PFF vacant, except for the futsal committee, whose chair Esmael Sedigh had recommended the sacking of women’s futsal head coach Emmanuel Batungbacal.

The ouster of Batungbacal prompted the resignation of the women’s futsal squad last week.

In a strongly worded letter, Cutillas said he has lost respect for Martinez whom he accused of bypassing him and other committee heads in making decisions in the PFF.

“We were ignored to the point that people outside the PFF were assigning favorites to the positions or removing people from their positions with only your approval,” said Cutillas, who coached the team to the 2008 Asean Championship Qualifiers for free.

Cutillas revealed that the PFF nearly came so close to not having a team for the Asean qualifiers after “coaches and players refused to go to the training camp because they claimed they could not trust their president” to give them allowances.

The last straw, Cutillas said, was Martinez’s alleged failure to act on the supposed meddling by RP women’s team manager Ernie Nierras in the affairs of the Under-19 and Under-16 teams.

“I have ... always been guided in the Ethics and Fair Play of the game,” Cutillas said. “Since these attributes do not seem to be important in your organization, I feel I am wasting my time and energy in an attempt to uplift football in the country.”






Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com