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?
Lerche Njang
Roar Rookie
Good thing that there is plan for a second division but lets see how everything will unfold!
Lerche Njang
Roar Rookie
If they eventually adopt WFL as a second division, I believe it will not be reasonable to have just 4 foreign players in a club as most of the young Filipino in WFL needs a stronger challenge to cope should they progressing to PFL teams. Also having a second division that is only based in Manila does not really worth it!
cris
Guest
pfl should leave the wfl alone and just concentrate first on expanding the number of clubs for next season and helping clubs developed it's home stadia. let the foreign football players play in wfl un restricted they already have considered Philippines as their second home. they have nowhere to go if they again lose wfl.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
In regards to the second question in the piece, whilst some of the clubs in the WFL may move into a second division (should it eventuate), the problem is the WFL is Manila based, like the old UFL. One of the key principles of the PFL was getting the game played nationally and this would need to be continued in any mooted second division. At this stage I would imagine an expansion of the PFL would precede any second division as there are currently only 8 teams with heavily populated areas such as Central Luzon, Bicol & Western Visayas without clubs. Even Northern Mindanao and ARMM need to be considered (once the fighting dies down) given the Moro's enthusiasm for the game.
OldFoot
Guest
It's a pity forign players are affected but if we want to develop football in our country the foreign cap is necessary. Otherwise competitive teams will always prioritize the more experience overseas players, and pinoy footballers won't have playing time.
Waz
Roar Rookie
Matt Acton was released by Roar and went to Kaya in the PFL before subsequently joining Victory as well.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Much of this is the PFL coming into line with broader AFC club football guidelines. This is understandable given the increasing amount of regional football action Filipino clubs are seeing. The amount of Japanese in the league recently is heartening.