I LEARNED about the change of ownership of Global Cebu FC from Dan Palami to Alvin Carranza a few weeks ago but didn’t get to learn many details until my former boss Jack Biantan wrote about it in his column.
Among the news that Jack wrote about is the new owner’s plan to bring in a European coach and the hiring of former Philippine Football Federation (PFF) secretary general Chito Manuel to run the club. I guess, as the new owner, he has the prerogative to run the club the way he see fit.
But the thing is, why fix something that isn’t broken? I have nothing against Manuel but news of how the former PFF official was fired on Day 1 into the Davao Aguilas season isn’t really reassuring; if he can somehow be a positive addition to Global then that would be great, but I hope his stint in Cebu won’t be similar to his stint in Davao.
Carranza, who owns a billboard business and is an avid football supporter, is also planning to bring in a European coach and if that pushes through, that would make him what, Global’s third head coach in two seasons? Didn’t they have a Japanese coach before Akbar Nawas took over? What could a European do coach that Akbar couldn’t?
Bringing in a new coach means yet another adjustment period for the club and the coach, who’d have to deal with a league that is yet to establish its footing. Retaining Nawas, and the rest of the coaching staff, means the new owner will only have to deal with player changes in the transfer window, and not have to sit down with the coach to talk about his philosphy and player references and the like.
Dan Palami had a great relationship with the Cebu Football Association, Gobal Cebu’s partner in the PFL, and I hope such relationship will continue under the new setup. To be honest, the rest of the PFL teams were envious of the support Global Cebu received from the CFA officers.
Then, of course, there’s the fans. The club attracted the largest paying crowd in their PFL matches (the other crowd-drawing teams gave away their tickets) and how the new owner--and his changes-- will be received by the fans is going to be important.
It’s going to be an interesting 2018 PFL season for us.