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| The new PFF executive team led by John Gutierrez wants to put a premium on seeing more homegrown Azkals and Filipinas at least in four years time. Ivan Saldajeno |
MAKATI—New Philippine Football Federation president John Gutierrez hopes by the time he steps down from football's top post, he will see more homegrown players suiting up for the national teams.
According to Gutierrez, who was voted by a "super majority" during the PFF elections on Saturday, it should begin by first bolstering the development of local players to make it at par with other countries.
"I think the real issue is not the percentage of blood between the players representing our country. I think the issue is those representing our country are not being developed locally. By the end of my term, I wish to have closed the gap between how the Philippines develops its talent against the rest of the world. The only reason our national team players are better than local talents is because of the kind of training, development, and exposure that are appropriate for them. In my administration, that is the gap that we are planning to bridge," Gutierrez said when he met reporters covering the football beat on Friday at Studio 300 Makati Branch.
The owner of the defunct UFL club Pachanga Diliman added that he will put up a technical team that will handle the national teams and the grassroots programs.
"We plan to have this technical team come up with the module or a curriculum that we will pass around the country through DepEd and RFAs (regional football associations) so that people from Tawi-Tawi will have the same module training development or experience as we have from people in Batanes. What we are going to end is the problem of not having the proper exposure," Gutierrez continued.
He then said that the core of the current Azkal and Filipina rosters just got that huge advantage of training abroad which allows them to unleash their potential faster than those in the domestic leagues.
"Players developed outside the country are only better than us because of the resources that they get, not because of their physical makeup and they are better off financially. It's because here in the Philippines, we cannot give and afford them the same opportunities they get in other countries, and that's what we're going to try to bridge so by the end of my term, I certainly hope that we have more homegrown talents on the national team," Gutierrez further said.
He continued, "Tigilan na natin yung, 'We have so much Fil-foreigners in that team.' We need more pure Filipinos," although he clarified that the Fil-foreigners should still be called Filipinos no matter what.
More homegrown Azkals, Filipinas 'doable' John Gutierrez's 'transition team'
Coach Vince Santos, who was tapped to be part of Gutierrez's "transition team", then said, "The experience that we have from bringing in Fil-foreigners has served its purpose. It's shown that the Filipinos are world-class but... I think there's more than enough talent we have locally. We just have to nourish and develop them further... and by the end of President John's term, we hope to have more of these homegrown talents for our senior national teams."
Santos hopes that in four years, the current crop of homegrown talent will reawake the "sleeping giants" of Southeast Asian football to return them to the glory they had during the Azkals' peak days last decade.
Former national team player Freddy Gonzalez, who is also part of the transition team, said that honing more homegrown talents is doable considering his case.
"The difference between those guys and me is I was trained here from youth all the way up, and I was able to break that barrier and become a professional. So you know that it can be done with locally developed players. It's already been done, so we can do it. And the goal of this administration is really to go all-out in terms of local talent development, and I believe that President Gutierrez really has the mandate for that," said Gonzalez, who starred for Gutierrez's Pachanga Diliman squad from 2004-2012 before he finished his professional career with Loyola.
Amid rumors regarding the specific role Gonzalez will have in Gutierrez's administration, Gutierrez joked that Gonzalez would be his "main striker" while Santos would be his "center midfielder."
Turning serious, though, Gutierrez said that they will announce their new roles in due time even as Coco Torre, at least for the meantime, remains as the PFF's secretary general.
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