Hi bvillegas you are right to the dot, where I come football or soccer is a popular sport in Singapore, like Pele was been idolized and local QUAH Kim Song, one of the most recognisable faces in local football who had contributed to Singapore football for nearly 40 year. In Singapore when come to world cup peoples all walk of life can loose sleep over it. I did asked myself during my school day if I'm a talented young athlete. Would I rather be a doctor, a lawyer, or a Singapore soccer star? Chances are, once I realized how little Singapore pay their professional soccer players those day, I probably choose one of the first two.
Sayson parallels the specific phenomenon of basketball in the Philippines, as a participatory as well as a spectator sport, to the rise of the game in America's inner cities. "It's because it's so cheap and the Philippines is a very poor country," he says. "You need a field for soccer or baseball; for basketball, you can make a hole in a bushel basket and set up court in an alley."
Posted by bvillegas
It may seem that only rich Filipinos are interested in soccer. Only residents of condominium apartments in Makati and Fort Bonifacio and the posh subdivisions in Makati and Alabang were waking up at 2:30 a.m. to watch some of the crucial games in the recent World Cup in South Africa. Among other reasons, they were the only ones who could afford Skycable or the Balls channel which transmitted live the soccer matches. In fact, the A and B homes had sleepless nights switching from Wimbledon to South Africa, as they saw Federer lose to Berdych or Nadal win over the latter in three sets while almost simultaneously seeing the Netherlands beating Brazil or Germany demolishing Argentina in the World Cup quarterfinals. Fortunately for the economic elite, the Wimbledon matches were over when the semi-finals and final matches in South Africa were played. They could focus on soccer during the second week of July.
It may also seem that only the children of the elite can show some interest in soccer while Filipinos from all the social classes are obsessed with basketball. There were millions more Filipinos following the Lakers vs Celtics rivalry in the US NBA than the World Cup games which were attracting billions of soccer fans in all the continents. Thanks to the priests of Don Bosco and private foundations like the Henry V. Moran Foundation, however, some of the poorest Filipinos are excelling in soccer. As reported in Malaya last March 26, 2010, a contingent of street children from the Philippines beat stronger teams from Brazil and South Africa (where soccer is almost a religion) in the First Deliotte Street Child World Cup in Durban, South Africa, last March. As Jerome Lagunzad reported in Malaya, "Dubbed the 'Miracle' team, the Filipinos stamped their mark against heavily favored foreign teams in the eight-team field in Durban, bouncing back from two humbling defeats to finish fifth overall and bag the 'Shield' Trophy, the top prize in the consolation round. After absorbing losses at the hands of United Kingdom and Tanzania, the Filipinos redeemed themselves, pulling off a 6-2 shocker over powerhouse Brazil and scoring a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over host South Africa." The participation of the Filipino street children in this event which was a prequel to the World Cup was dubbed "miraculous" because of the almost impossible hurdles that they had to overcome. Some of the kids could not get passports because they did not have birth certificates. The funding for the travel and the board and lodging costs did not come till the very last minute. As the RP team manager, Craig Burrows, said: "This is a miracle because we've experienced so many miracles along the way." An example was the almost last-minute decision of Amos Trust, established 25 years ago to promote justice and hope to forgotten communities to bankroll the team's airfare and other travel expenses. Other benefactors were Peter Moran of the Henry Moran Foundation, Fr. Rocky Evangelista of Tuloy sa Don Bosco (an institution for street children), Derek Page of the British Embassy, and Miles Roces, who represented Manny Pacquiao, one of the team's chief backers. This will not be the last time some of the poorest Filipinos can prove that we can excel in soccer if only there is sufficient financial support from interested parties. As I have said many times in these columns, not all the money in the world will enable us to capture world titles in basketball. We do not have the likes of Pau Gasol. But we can have the likes of Lionel Messi, the world's most valuable soccer player. One of the private groups that are helping develop the soccer skills of poor children is the Henry V. Moran Foundation, a non-profit organization, which started as a result of several projects to help improve the plight of the poor thorough education, livelihood, and community development. Danny Moran, second of the seven children of Henry V. Moran and Edita Moran, had been actively working with kids who have less in life through sports, football in particular. Others involved in the promotion of soccer are Alaska Foundation, put up by the Alaska Milk Corporation; Gawad Kalinga; Tuloy sa Don Bosco in Alabang, Manila Boys' Town in Marikina, Nayon ng Kabataan in Mandaluyong, Football Club Leveriza, Philippine Christian Foundation, Muntinlupa United Football Club, Sisters of Mary in Silang, Cavite, Urban Opportunities for Change, and the Philippine Football Federation. Although it will be an uphill climb, these institutions may yet succeed in attracting more attention to the world's most popular sport - soccer - among Filipinos. If the tradition started by the street children who brought home the bacon from South Africa will be continued, then soccer could be a vehicle for redistributing sports glory, if not income, from the rich to the poor in the Philippines. (For comments, my e-mail address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.)
