IN MY last column, I wrote that Ricky Yanson was the perfect candidate to be the next president of the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) because of what he has done with his local association and Ceres FC. It turns out that I made a grave error. I attributed the achievements of two individuals to one person. Ceres FC is owned by Leorey, the younger brother of Ricky, who is the Negros Occidental Football Association (Nofa) president.
Does that diminish what Ricky has done as Nofa president? No, not really. Believe me, the Nofa of today isn’t the Nofa of two decades when I first wrote about football.
Does it also put his plans as president--especially that national U13 tournament--on a different light? No, whether it’s him or someones else, I’ve been fairly consistent on that. We need a national youth tournament and late it might have come, I’m glad outgoing president Nonong Araneta finally had one under his term.
But what it does is put a potential Yanson presidency at the PFF under a new light.
Had the achievements I listed been done by any other brothers--provided you can find another set of brothers as rich as the Yansons in football--I think it would be safe to assume that we won’t bother to really find out who was behind who. Because let’s face it, as Filipinos, we all know about family ties and that, in the success of one brother, you’d find the support of another.
But the Yansons are not ordinary brothers. Ricky and Leorey--the Nofa president and the Ceres owner--are locked in a corporate battle. A bitter one as we’ve all read and frankly, I don’t think the PFF is ready to have a president with such a baggage.
Well, we’ve had officials who had corporate troubles before, right? Yep, but it wasn’t against a guy who owns the top pro football team in the country.
By all reports, the Ceres corporation controversy won’t go away in the next few years and I’m pretty sure we can’t have a PFF distracted by one. Because if both Yansons will be in the national scene--Ricky as PFF president and Leorey as the owner of the country’s top team--it will be dragged in one. Heck, even something as simple as a call-up or a choice of a youth coach might be viewed under “where do you stand in the Ceres shakeup” microscope.
Why should the rest of PHL football be concerned of an inter-company legal fight? Again, we shouldn’t be but if it’s the potential president against the top pro club, we should be. Heck, for all we know, his running for the PFF presidency is part of the strategy in his part of the corporate battle. So it’s best that the PFF is spared of that.
I’m not picking sides in the corporate shakeup of Ceres, that’s for the courts to decide. I’m not picking sides between the two brothers too. I’m just saying that right now, we don’t need this.
The PFF doesn’t need this. I thought I found the perfect candidate because of the achievements of two individuals. I was wrong.
I hope another candidate steps forward.