ALMOST everyone I know is trying in their own ways to help out in the crisis; from friends donating sets of PPE to frontliners, to folks trying to make other folks stay at home and of course, fellow football fans pointing out the mis-steps in their local government unit’s approach to the Covid-19 crisis.
But some are doing more than their fair share of the fight, like Central Visayas Football Association board member Alvin Roxas, a doctor, who has been in the frontline.
LGR, the jersey sponsor of the national teams, has also redirected its production of jerseys to produce PPEs and based on Cedelf Tupas’ post, the jersey maker has sent its first batch to Bacolod City. Vallacar Transport, the company behind Ceres FC, has also mobilized its fleet of buses nationwide to help transport frontline workers since the various quarantine measures has called for the suspension of public transportation.
On the other hand, Stallions Laguna head coach and former Malditas manager Ernie Nierras got to wear his other hat as an engineer and chief executive officer of a tech company as he has been busy trying to address the lack of ventilators by using 3-D printers. The whole process is too geeky for me but aside from trying to address that problem, the feisty and outspoken coach is also doing his share to remind everyone to just stay at home.
I know these guys aren’t after recognition but let’s offer the online equivalent to a round of applause for these football stakeholders for helping out during this pandemic. And of course, not just them but to all the rest of the frontline workers.
We don’t know how long the whole thing will last and here at home, we’re looking at the end of the month for the lifting of the quarantine, that is if the rest of the LGUs follow Cebu City’s lead. Still, even if the quarantine measures are lifted, as Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia said, socializing, as we knew it before Covid-19, won’t be the same.
And that’s going to hold true for sports.
It’s just the fourth month of the year and I think it’s safe to assume that we won’t be seeing any national step-ladder football tournament this year. I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong but we just have to be open to that possibility. This year was supposed to be the year that we were going to have three national step-ladder tournaments--Under 13, Under 15 and Under 17 for the boys--and a national tournament for the girls.
However a step-ladder event, which calls for local and regional eliminations before the national event, needs at least six months to be finished and sometimes longer. That’s because the participating football associations (FAs) have their own competitions and tournaments.
But then again, that should be the least of our concerns these days, right? Getting through this crisis should be our top priority. So anyway, fret not if there won’t be a national tournament this year. Things like that will still happen down the line. The best we can do for now, is to stay put and help the frontline workers flatten that curve.