Post your Dream "Philippine Premier League" here

[Striker_Manager_and_Owner]

This thread is about what you think should be the highest professional level football league in the Philippines.

What should be in a post:
1. The league name
2. Names of the teams in every division
3. Existing League modeled to (i.e. EPL, V-League, J-League)
4. Stadiums to be used and assignment to each team (home stadium if applicable)
5. Schedule, season, format
6. You can tell us which team is your dream team and you may post which players you want for each team.


This is a thread for hypothetical leagues and teams, but you can post existing leagues that can be a feasible model for our league.


*Modify your post as you think of more ideas for your league instead of creating a new post

[Striker_Manager_and_Owner]

League name: Philippine Premier Football League

Teams: (dont worry, ill add these as time goes by)
Manila City FC Manila United FC Laguna FC Laguna United FC
Cebu FC Barotac Nuevo Athletic Panaad FC Baguio FC

Modeled to EPL with relegation, promotion

Stadiums: Rizal, ULTRA, and U of Makati

Schedule: Double round robin for league title, and FA tournament like in EPL

[cjeagle]

As I have mentioned in another thread, teams with strong regional representation and even owners from that area, should be encouraged to have their provinces or city's name on the team, as this will encourage fans of those areas to support the team and engender rivalries. Having football themed names like Real Manila, Cebu United, Sporting Leyte or Forza Bacolod will also add an element of authenticity to the team especially for the fans who follow professional football leagues in Europe and elsewhere.

In keeping with the traditions of the sport, I prefer a promotion/relegation system with teams fielding reserves and youth teams in the lower divisions.

In the short term those stadiums you mentioned would be ideal, although
playing all their games plus other events in just those 3 stadiums will be not be good for the pitch. Coach Weiss has already mentioned that the field is already deteriorating and ideally the national stadium, be it Rizal or another stadium yet to be built, should be reserved for international events. It kind of sounds like from what Coach Weiss is saying that it is another case of ningas cogon, where they seem to have forgotten to remember to maintain the pitch in Rizal. Ultimately of course in the future, teams should have their own stadiums in their own provinces or cities as they can they control the source of revenue and maximize profit.

Ideally a double round robin for the top tier league, would be a good idea with a FA tournament called the Philippine Cup administered by the PFF open to all teams including those from the lower divisions. However, if they have not reached an even number of teams with the corresponding even number of games throughout the year to allow this schedule, they should have the flexibility to play an uneven schedule like they do in the MLS until they have reached the ideal number of teams that can do a round robin.

[Striker_Manager_and_Owner]

i agree with you cjeagle. Most leagues have 3 titles to win in a season (ie with EPL, the carling cup, FA cup and the league title) in their own country - so what would be our 3rd?

Come on people, lets get this thread going!

[xclentoy]

League Name: Liga Pilipinas

Div 1 : Northern Conference: Kaya Manila FC cignals, Bonifacio Global FC san miguel, meralco
Loyola Quezon FC, Green Archers Laguna FC, Baguio FC miners and Diliman FC Victory

Southern Conference: Cebu Queen City United, Negros Stallions FC, Laos Iloilo FC,
AC Leyte , Real Davao Durians and Sporting CagayanDO

Div 2: Northern Conference: PAF, PNavy, PArmy, Sunken Garden FC, UIM, Nomads, Dolphins FC
Lions FC, Manila - All Japan, Pasargard FC, and Pachanga FC

Southern Conference: Forza FC, Garuda FC, Manila Sudanese Club, ABC Stars FC,
Internacionale FC, Schwarz FC, Team Socceroo, Manhur FC , Samar FC, FC Bohol
Fighting GenSan and AC Cotabato

Model after Modiefied MLS with promotion and relegation

Stadia: North: Rizal MS, Philsports Pitch, UMAK, InC Stadium etc
South: Panaad Stadium, Cebu Sports Comlex, Davao Del Norte Spors complex
Iloilo SC, etc

Schedule: Same Conference plays 2x home and away and interconference play once for
League Title, Northern Conference Cup Div 1 + Div 2 single round robin, Southern
Conference Cup Div 1 + Div 2 single round robin, Smart Pilipinas Cup - Top 4 of each
conference cup(div1+2) plays double round robin and top 2 plays the Championship.

2 Cups up for grabs, Northern/Southern Cup and Smart Pilipinas Cup
League Title goes to the highest point

Div 1 = 12 teams
Div 2 = 22 teams
Bottom 1 of Div 1 for each conference gets a chance to be relegated
Top 2 of Div 2 of each conference plays home and away format for a chance to play
Northern and Southern Conf Bottom 1 Div 1 vs Top 1 Div 2 = Promoted to Div 1

[Striker_Manager_and_Owner]

I like the fact that there are more division 2 teams than division 1 teams. That will make them want to join div 1 more - if there is equity, less teams will have an equal share of the pie. The more teams that the first division has, the less the share of each team and the less revenue they will get (presumably in a good economic environment).

Nice one xclentoy!

lets get more "leagues" in this thread!

[badleftfoot]

I would also add one competition much like the FA Cup or US Open Cup where ANY TEAM/Club can join and participate. I can see the Div1, Div2 as mentioned above by xclentoy, maybe schools?, those homeless teams, what have you. We can have the preliminaries start with the lower level teams playing each in a home-away format. The Div2 come ins later, and Div1's join in when the Div's 2 have completed their matches. Thoughts? Salamat po.

[stellarboy]

Another forum is already having a healthy discussion on what our prospective national league would be:

www.azkals.com/topic/we-need-a-national-professional-football-tournament

HRK1 has an opinion piece (I'm hoping teddyandtimmysdad is listening):

I am originally from Mandaluyong city, Manila. I learnt to play football with Don Bosco Mandaluyong during the 70’s – barefoot and the pitch was not always with grass (sometimes, we needed to walk around the pitch and pick up broken glass before playing).

During that decade, the rector of the school, Fr. Panfillo was also a player-coach for Carnation FC (ie Carnation - brand of milk), a competition under RIFA (Rizal FA). It was an amateur to semi-pro competition. As usual, Air Force, Army and Navy are the other teams as well.

Games were played at the old ULTRA.

PHI PRO LEAGUE ?

To start a pro league, requires the usual principal foundations – finances (money), structure, good management system, teams that are viable, fan base etc etc.

With an economy like PHI, to start something like a pro football league at a truly national format will be difficult.

One of my criticism of the PBA is it uses the word “Philippines” and yet all teams in this basketball league are owned by corporations located in Metro Manila. Similarly, the NCAA of the PHI uses the word “National” when most / all universities and colleges that compete in this varsity competition are all from Metro Manila (specifically, within the Diliman campus belt).

So, in my view, if PHI is going to start a pro football league, it has to be truly NATIONAL and not just based in Metro Manila (ie UFL). It has to involvedteams from Zamboanga / Davao del Sur and all the way to Aparri (including every regions between those three geographic locations).

One of the main problems that will face any franchise that will start a club in PHI (apart from finance, sponsorship etc) is to ensure that they have enough finances to meet their obligations to play away games – playing away games week in and week out is something no team in any pinoy sport have done before.

WHAT FORMAT TO USE

Also there is the question of what league format to use that can be practicable for all. Do you use the English League format (several divisions with relegation and promotion system – a format common to all euro football leagues)?

Or do you use a regional format?

ENGLISH FOOTBALL LEAGUE

The English football system, traditionally have Divisions 1,2,3,4 (currently known as EPL, The Championship, League One and League Two respectively).

This league covers all towns, cities, boroughs (aka municipalities) located in England (PS: it also have clubs from Wales – Cardiff and Swansea).

No matter how big the town or the city is, it will have a club. In some cases, a city will have more than one club. All up, there are 90 plus clubs in this league system. Clubs like Plymouth Argyle FC (southern tip of England) are expected to play clubs like Darlington FC or maybe Newcastle United (North-Eastern tip of England) during league matches, if they are in the same division or during FA and league cup games, if they are drawn together. So, for clubs like these, which are in opposite ends of England, away games are truly AWAY games (ie air or train travel is required).

Apply this scenario to teams coming from Zamboanga or Aparri. Due to their geographic locations in PHI, you can expect ZAM and APA to be the teams that will travel the most on away games – you can also expect majority of their away games require air travel. Hence, this is one major overhead cost any club owner need to consider.

Now, PHI have 97 million people, if we have an economy like Japan or even say, Switzerland – we can have a league system just like England with every city of very region or even towns from every province represented in this league.

But in reality, we do not have that sort of economy. Additionally, the English league system / format although recognizable to those who are ardent followers of the EPL or Euro football, it may not be successful in PHI. I do not believe pinoys in PHI will fully appreciate a relegation system.

REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS WITH A GRAND FINAL FORMAT?

One of the viable league format that can be a success in PHI is a variant of the NFL, NBA, MLB system. Where teams from similar geographic locations are grouped together.

Example: we can divide Mindanao into 4 zones (ie North, South, East and West). Do the same for Luzon and Visayas.

Each zone can have 5 teams each (home and away format). The winners from each zone will play against each other within their region (home and away) to determine the champions of the region ie the champions for Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao.

PS: since there is an odd number, this system might use a ‘wild-card’ to even up the teams

GeeDee, can you slot in the teams you mentioned in your post in this format?

Then, the champions from each region (plus a wild card) will play knock-out home and away play-off. The last two will play in a one-off grand final game. The winner will be the national champion.

I believe this system will be practicable in PHI. It will reduce “out-of-the province” travel. And the only time a team is expected to go outside their province / region is at the inter-regional knock-out home and away play-off stage.

WHERE TO FROM HERE

Regardless of the criticism the Azkal players attract (ie so called hype, show biz, etc), what they’ve done for Pinoy football is much, much, more than what I’ve seen since the 70s, 80s, 90s.

During the past 4 decades, I cannot recall ever seeing a RP XI game televised live on pinoy TV (apart from seeing highlights of Carnation FC game on channel 4). During the past 4 decades, I cannot recall seeing 13-14,000 fans at Rizal stadium to see a football game (but I remember a RP NCAA XI demolished by a Singapore XI 16-0 at the ULTRA in 1981, 30 people in the stands…I was one of them).

There are still a lot to be done. Most football countries have been playing football for 100 years. The PFA / PFF was established in 1907, but we had a 100 years black hole, in theory we are playing catch-up. Hopefully, under the FIFA Goal program / funds, PFF will develop a sustainable and manageable grassroots system, a sustainable and manageable league that will develop players and produce future players for the national team.

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The English system might not suit up well at least in the socio-economic sense. A region-based tournament will be good for us.