A FEW days ago, the football community was rocked by an embarrassing brawl involving a coach, players and a referee in a regional meet. Incidents like that, sadly, are not new in DepEd-sanctioned tournaments and almost occur annually. Not just in football.
Why do these always happen in DepEd meets and not in meets organized by the NSAs?
One of the reasons these keep occuring is that often times, coaches and players go scot-free as sanctions are often rare and if there are sanctions, they’re not stiff enough. Take the case of the players invovled in the regional meet in Region 6, the guilty parties are banned from participating in the next regional meet, which is merely a slap in the wrist.
What if they don’t qualify for the regional meet? They essentially go scot-free.
Instead of penalizing them in the same meet, DepEd should impose the penalty in the next rung of it’s ladderized tournament; the Palaro if the athletes do qualify and if not, then the first of the series of meets in the next school calendar.
If they aren’t allowed to compete in the Unit Meet, that means the players won’t be eligible to play in the next rung, so they’d essentially be forced to “rest” from competitions for the next school calendar, something that should weigh heavily in their minds should they decide to bring their MMA ambitions to sports events.
I’m confident that if DepEd adopts this policy for its sanctions on erring coaches and players, the number of brawls in any of its events will drop sharply.
But, I fear when it comes to changes in DepEd meets, they happen very slowly. Take the case of what the football players have to deal with in the Cviraa; they are playing in an unplayable muddy field that’s made for a carabao to wade through.
Back home, the sons of my former teammates are playing in pitches not unlike the ones we played before, which were uneven. The worst I’ve played on was a freshly-plowed farm lot that was hastily converted into a football field.
And when it comes to pitches like that, playing beautifully is secondary to playing safe. I hope DepEd really does consider players’ safety when it chooses venues for its games.