Philippine football leagues are going through a series of changes that have left foreign players – players that dominated the country’s football for the past years – frustrated.
In April 2017, Philippines Football Federation launched the first professional football league (PFL) and introduced a rule that limited foreign cap to four players in a club one of which must be Asian.
The league has eight clubs currently competing in a home-and-away format.
Before PFL, United Football League (UFL) that started in 2009 was the Philippines’ primary football league. It was composed of two divisions but the final season in 2016 had one division with 12 teams.
UFL had no cap until 2014 when the executive committee of the league implement the foreign player rule. Under the rule, clubs were allowed to field in a maximum of five foreign players at any given time. Two of the remaining six players on the pitch were allowed to still be foreigners, provided they were permanent residents of the Philippines for at least five years.
In 2016, UFL further reduced the foreign player cap to four, one of which must be Asian.
With the new PFL, there are fewer clubs than the time of UFL and more restrictions that have left dozens of foreign players that were already making football career in the Philippines frustrated and without a club.
Many have stopped playing football, while others moved to a non-division league known as Weekend Football League (WFL). WFL is open to those players that are not playing in other division leagues. In WFL, there is no foreign cap in all the categories.
The majority of the clubs in WFL Elite division do not pay but some give a transport allowance on match day and bonuses occasionally.
At the writing of this article, there is a rumour that WFL Elite division is going to be adopted as the Philippines second division league and the same foreign rules implemented in the PFL will be applied.
Does the WFL need a foreign cap in the first season? Should the PFF adopt the Elite division as the Philippines second division league?
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