Give And Go
By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
The local club football scene was dealt an unexpected blow recently when the plug was pulled on the rebranded Philippine Premier League (PPL) at the weekend with only one official play date held.
The death knell for the league, which was launched just early this year to replace the Philippines Football League which ran for two seasons, came when the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) decided to terminate its agreement with PPL operator Triple CH Holdings Co. Ltd with immediate effect and said it would bring back the PFL later this month.
Not much detail was given as to the reason behind the termination of the deal but reports have that the country’s football federation was not satisfied with the way things were panning out for the league across various fronts, including lack of sponsors and inability of some of the competing teams to secure the proper licenses to participate.
The PPL was supposed to kick off on March 30 but had to postpone it to April 27 to iron some things out.
On the eve of its opener on April 26, Stallion Laguna FC and Global Makati FC, two teams that were expected to see action in the PPL, withdrew from participating, citing several issues and questioned the capacity of the operator to run the league.
The move left the PPL with only five teams — Ceres-Negros FC, Kaya FC-Iloilo, Green Archers United, Mendiola FC 1991 and Philippine Air Force — two of which, Mendiola and Air Force, were without licenses at the time.
Despite that the PPL pushed through with its kickoff on April 27 at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium with Air Force and Mendiola fighting to a 2-2 draw and Kaya emerging as a 3-0 winner over Green Archers United.
It turned out to be a one-and-done staging for the PPL as exactly a week after the PFF decision was handed down.
I was at the launch of the PPL in January and this turn of events came to me as a big surprise.
At that time there was much hope for the rebranded league with various stakeholders high on it, including officials of the PFF, led by its president Nonong Araneta, and PPL, coveror Sports5, team executives and other partners.
They hailed it as “a new dawn for Philippine football,” and quite understandable as the PPL had grand plans laid down by its commissioner and Triple CH Holdings chairman Bernie Sumayao.
Among the plans were to have at least eight teams participating, increasing fan engagement both at the game venue and out of it, and steady exposure for the league with TV coverage and activation on various social media platforms.
PPL said these were conspicuously missing in leagues prior to it.
Such goals were doable no doubt but needed much work to be realized.
As it turned out, however a lot, or should say, little, happened in between the launch and the targeted kickoff of March 30, eventually leading to the PFF decision last weekend.
In the aftermath, fans and stakeholders are turning to the PFF and its next move.
The revert to the PFL is seemingly welcome to many but mere revival of the league would not make the cut because supporters of the sport in the country are clamoring for more things to get their teeth into.
In doing so, however, the PFF should make sure to cover the needed bases so as not have a repeat of this recent episode in Philippine football.
To see the PPL not able to take off as hoped was truly unfortunate but here is hoping that the return of the PFL would be a successful one. For the sake of the Beautiful Game let us make this happen and well.
Michael Angelo S. Murillo has been a columnist since 2003. He is a BusinessWorld senior reporter covering the Sports beat.
