Karl Decena, InterAKTV
In a bizarre move, the United Football League decided to change the Cup competition format just as the tournament nears the quarterfinals stage.
The UFL said in a statement on Thursday that the format of the competition had originally featured revisions that the league decided to implement right before the knockout stages.
The league, however, realized that making sudden changes in the format “would be an unhealthy precedent to set for future competitions,” making it decide to revert back to the original but “flawed” format.
“Although the Technical Committee admits the initial format is flawed, as the top seeds immediately face each other in the quarterfinals, it was agreed that changing the format midway through the competition would be an unhealthy precedent to set for future competitions,” the league wrote in a statement.
“The committee accepts that it was an oversight in their part not to have altered the format before the start of the competition, and has vowed to be more diligent in ensuring similar problems will no longer arise in the future.”
Sixteen teams that made it to the knockout stages were ranked accordingly to determine the pairings for the round-of-16. The top three teams from each of the five groups and the best fourth-placed squad earned a slot in the next round.
As a result, Philippine Air Force will face Union Internacional Manila, while defending champion Stallion FC will battle Pachanga Diliman FC.
Ceres-La Salle FC will face the winner of Green Archers United Globe versus Manila Jeepney FC, while the Loyola Meralco Sparks will battle the winner of Global FC versus Philippine Navy.
The quarterfinals will start on November 26, while the semifinals will be played on December 3 and finals on December 5 at the Emperador Stadium. All games will be shown live on AksyonTV, the sports and news-related channel of TV5.
interaksyon
wow magaling3 san ka ba nmang liga nakarinig ng balitang reformat ng lban sa quarterfinals,sa ufl lng este sa afl "amateur football league" lng tsk tsk...,tuloy nyu lng ang kabobohan nyu at cguradong dadami fans ng afl lol.....
ReplyDeleteThis is a joke! Nobody in the world would have noticed that they changed the format and they say that they are changing it, because it shouldn't have been changed midway?!?! Don't they notice that they are doing exactly that right now, by going back to the flawed format?!?! WHAT A BUNCH OF AMATEURS!!
ReplyDeleteYan mo n. Wala nmn viewers lol
DeletePART 1:
ReplyDeleteThis article and all other articles pertaining to the revise format of the UFL Cup is slanted or bias and obviously coming from only one source -------the people behind the UFL who coincidentally have their own material interest as they are also club owners. One wonders whatever happened to balance reporting?
There is only ONE real important issue here which is being kept out from the public eye. The issue is not so much on the change of the so called “flawed format” but the timing. The change was done when the group stage was about to end and the rankings of the clubs were already clear.
All the clubs were in complete agreement that the UFL Cup was better off with the usual format but the contention was the timing on the change of format as it may be construed as favoring certain clubs.
This is the very important detail left out in all reports. Almost a month before the proposed revision of the UFL Cup format a club emailed the UFL Management to inquire if there was a mistake in the format being used this season and if so the correction must be done immediately as it would not be right to do it later on. The email sent to the UFL did not receive any response from the UFL-----no acknowledgement that an error was committed and that changes were going to be made. There was also another club who brought the issue to the UFL Technical Director in one of its earlier match. The Technical Director was evasive and none of the concern of that particular club was addressed.
This is the real issue. The UFL Management could have made the changes about a month earlier but opted to do it when the rankings were already clear to everyone. This was the main issue as it was deemed that such timing favored certain clubs. What added fuel to the fire was that the UFL Management could not provide any acceptable explanation why the changes were not made earlier when they obviously were aware of it and could have done so?
The other related issue was that the decision to revise the UFL Cup format was done without due process. The clubs were not consulted and the decision making process was not in accordance to the Tournament Rules wherein such cases must be decided by the appropriate body of the UFL which is the Technical Committee and the Excom. The unilateral decision was taken by only the people running the competition and who questionably also own clubs. This group blatantly disregarded the Tournament Regulations and ignored the Rights of the Clubs who are directly affected.
Only after some clubs protested the manner in which the decision was made and after the NCRFA realized that the UFL deceived the NCRFA by making the NCRFA believe that the decision- making process was in compliance with the Tournament Rules and therefore was forced to withdraw its support for the revision because of possible violations of principles of due process and the Tournament Rules did the UFL decide to call a Technical Committee meeting to discuss the matter. To add to the confusion the UFL Management continued to make announcements both in the media and their official websites despite the fact that the UFL changes was still up in the air.
PART 2:
ReplyDeleteThe NCRFA set a condition for the new format to be implemented. All clubs had to agree to it. The reason behind this condition is simple. Each club before the tournament signed a Conformity Form that stated that they agreed and will abide by the Tournament Regulations (referring to the rules already approved and adopted by the UFL). This is more or less the same process used in any AFC or FIFA competition.
This form is binding and is deemed as an agreement between the UFL and the clubs concerned. Therefore if any changes are to be made and the agreement between the parties is to be respected all parties must agree or else there will be a breach in the agreement.
The true concern of the management of the UFL was not the correction of the format per se. The true concern was to have a format wherein Loyola vs. Global match will be the teams to compete in the Finals. This is not mere speculation, there is concrete proof. This did not sit well with some clubs as they felt that all stakeholders of the UFL Cup must be treated equally and considering only the interest of the bigger clubs was not in accordance with the principles of Fair Play.