MANILA, Philippines—It’s no longer the PhilSports pitch, but the Rizal Memorial Stadium that will be the site for the Fifa Goal Project 3, paving the way for the construction of an artificial pitch and the expansion of the historic venue.
Philippine Football Federation president Mariano
“Nonong” Araneta Wednesday told the Inquirer that the Philippine Sports
Commission, which owns both facilities, had requested for a change in
location.
“I think its a better venue,” said Araneta,
referring to Rizal Memorial, which can currently seat 13,000 people.
“It will be easier to justify to Fifa, which had
already approved PhilSports, the move.”
PSC commissioner Jolly Gomez said they plan to
transfer the facility of the Philippine Track and Field Association to
PhilSports.
“Athletics will benefit from the move as it will
also find a permanent home at the PhilSports field,” said Gomez.
Patafa has been sharing time with the PFF for use
of the venue with international football matches starting last June.
Araneta revealed plans to increase the stadium
capacity to 23,000.
The Patafa will also move out of the office at
the side of the RMS while the PFF can also make use of the space covered by the
rubberized track for expansion.
“It’s a win-win situation for all parties,” Gomez
said.
Araneta said they can turn the Rizal Memorial
into a football complex with an office and dormitory.
“We will improve the stadium, fix the dressing
rooms and overall just making it a better venue for football.”
The move will also allow the PFF to save money
for maintenance as keeping an artificial pitch on shape will only cost P200,000
annually, 60 percent less than maintaining the grass, Araneta said.
The PFF also assured that there will be no
conflict with De La Salle University, which has an ongoing agreement with the
PSC regarding the use of the Rizal field.
The Taft-based university, which funded the
rehabilitation of the pitch, will still enjoy the same benefit as part of its
deal with PSC of three hours use of the field per day, Araneta said.
The Rizal field has played an important role in
the rise of the Azkals’ popularity, playing host to some of the biggest events
of the widely popular team.
The historic match between the Azkals and Major
League Soccer champion Los Angeles Galaxy, which featured global sporting icons
David Beckham and Landon Donovan, was held at the ages-old coliseum December
last year.
Before that match, Beckham and his Galaxy
teammates held a football clinic for children.
Big-time football first made its return to Rizal
Memorial when the country hosted a World Cup qualifying match pitting the Azkals
against Sri Lanka in June last year.
The following month, another World Cup qualifier
was played at Rizal when the Azkals faced Kuwait.
In October, the pitch again played host to an
Azkals match—a friendly against Nepal.
This means we will only have an artificial pitch stadium to hold international events in. Ideally we should have both natural grass and synthetic pitch stadiums to play and practice in. Most visiting teams that we would like to host prefer a natural grass pitch to play in and may not be as inclined to play here if we don't have one. This would also allow our teams the chance to practice in either surfaces before competing in international games abroad that might carry either type of pitch.
ReplyDeleteI would have preferred that they kept Rizal Memorial a natural grass stadium only pitch. tear up the track and expand its seating capacity and built a totally separate artificial pitch training center in a different location, with a smaller seating capacity that can be expanded in the future.
If they go through with this, it also means that the millions of pesos that we have already spent upgrading our natural grass pitch to international standards that has elicited a lot of positive comments from visiting teams we have hosted, will have been wasted. It would be a shame to lose such a facility after only using it for a year.
Finally, they also better get a guarantee from the PSC and the government that Rizal Memorial will not be torn down as has been discussed in the past. Otherwise, FIFA will never agree to this or will be very upset if this happens after they provided us the financing to built a pitch that is supposed to last more than 30 years, even if there are plans to built a replacement stadium in the future.
Nice move PFF. Need not worry about natural grass stadiums, we have plenty of that to practice with.
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