Our family has just come back from the Xavier Cup held on the grounds of the Xavier school. Overall, the cup has always been well run by the Xavier School. However, we are now starting to notice some very worrying trends at the tournaments. This ugly problem has always been around, but it now seems to be getting worse and worse with the sharp increase in interest in football at the grass roots level.
Please don't get me wrong. This piece is not aimed at the Xavier School or their program, coaches, or tournament. In fact if anything I believe that Xavier has always been very concerned and been acting very honorably regarding this serious problem. It is just that this latest tournament seems to have had an inordinate number of these problems, which is very difficult to inhibit without rigorous controls. What is the problem that we should be ashamed of? It is none other than that age old problem of overage kids playing in the younger brackets of tournaments.
I'm very sorry to raise this issue in a public forum, but this problem is now getting very very widespread - we are now seeing the practice in almost every tournament we play in. Why is this worrying? Because we are now starting to see it from some of the biggest clubs (and some of the newer schools) who are now just starting to participate in these tournaments.
I must emphasize that most if not all of the main schools that have been long time participants of these tournaments know better and do not practice this. However I have now seen very specific examples of this practice in the last two competitions we have played - the Fleet Marine Tournament and the Xavier Cup. In this last case we even took video of the overage child playing, a child who used to play in our own program, and who we KNOW IS OVERAGE. The thing that makes this most distressing is that this team is from one of the up-and-coming new club teams in the metro manila area, with vague links to one of the leading UFL teams. I believe the grasp for fame and win-at-all-costs attitude of some of the seniors associated with the grassroots programs (and the money successful programs can generate) are at the root of these problems, and should be a source of shame for Philippines football as a whole.
My mission here is not to finger point. This is not effective in solving the problem. However, the powers that be in Philippines football must recognize that this problem has now achieved epidemic proportions. This problem is really serious. Young boys and girls who work and train hard, who spend long hours learning the game, all of a sudden find themselves faced with ridiculous situations where their kids face a team twice the size of their players.
Something must be done. First of all, the powers that be in Philippine football, whether they are the PFF, the regional football associations, or the scholastic football associations, MUST RECOGNIZE THAT THIS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM AND GETTING WORSE. I believe that an organization with the gravitas of the PFF, which avows to the principles of fair play, should take the lead in working with the regional FAs and school associations to institute immediate solutions to this problem. One quick solution is to institute a reporting mechanism and sanctions mechanism for teams which break the rules. Schools or clubs which break the rules should be reported, they should be sanctioned, and they should be shunned from respectable tournaments (like the Xavier Cup and so many others) where the kids at least should have a fair crack at the game without being faced by shameful cheating.
studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing
or learning to do." Pele
