by ALEX P. VIDAL
SAN DIEGO, California – Philippine football is in tailspin and will die a natural death if politics and internal wrangling will continue to bedevil the sport’s national association.
The warning was issued by Fred Cameron, a retired former top player of the United States soccer team who is married to a Filipina resort owner in Zambales, Philippines.
Cameron, 76, said RP football needs a strong foundation and stakeholders should uphold and support its current leadership instead of fighting over certain positions and engaging in endless mudslinging that tend to destroy the group’s camaraderie .
"It’s very basic. Good leadership and strong foundation produce good and strong team. The players need inspiration and it should come from the leaders running the football association," he said in exclusive interview.
Cameron, born in Toronto, Canada and resided in Scotland before becoming a member of the U.S. Team in 1958, said the players are the ones who suffer from demoralization and their morale is low once they see their leaders figure in "unnecessary" conflict.
PFF CONFLICT
Cameron’s statement came in the heels of controversy involving attempts from some faction in the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) to oust their president Jose Mari C. Martinez whom they accused of corruption and mismanagement.
The infighting was compounded after some members of the PFF Board of Governors blamed Matinez for the national team’s poor performance in the recently held AFC Challenge Cup in Maldives where the Philippines won only one match and lost two, including a humiliating 5-0 thrashing from Turkmenistan despite the presence of eight foreign-based reinforcements.
NCR Football Asso-ciation president Pocholo Borromeo, Laguna Football Association chief Jun Pacificador and former PFF technical director Juan Cutillas have blasted Martinez for the "poor" state of football in the country. "Football’s slogan is fair play, unfortunately it’s not happening in Philippine football," Pacificador said in a sports forum.
Onie Patulin, a former member of the PFF Board of Governors, meanwhile, believes the absence of tournaments and coaches’ development program has left the country’s football program "stagnant." "The national team is not just a reflection, but a caricature of the current state of football and the policies of Martinez," said Cutillas. "It’s pathetic."
CARPENTER TURNS SOCCER STAR
Cameron, a skilled carpenter by profession and one of the leading players in the U.S. during his time, turned pro in Scotland at the age of 17 and played there against the top European sides from 1951 to 1955. He was serving an apprenticeship as a carpenter and cabinet maker at that time.
Cameron, hero in the all-star U.S. team that held the favored Mexico City to a 2-2 deadlock in the Section II division of the World Soccer Cup eliminations on March 7, 1965, had only eight weeks away from his job at Sears in the last seven and a half years when his loss of wages was reimbursed by the U.S. Soccer Association.
His big break in the sport came in 1956 when TV star Allen Young was visiting Canada and decided to sponsor five players for a trip to Southern California to meet a Danish team. The Canadians lost, 2-1, but it was a glorious journey for Cameron and was his first step toward becoming a U.S. citizen./MP
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