Ed Gastanes memo undermines Araneta’s promise to Bohol during CVFA general assembly

On May 20, 2023, the Central Visayas Football Association held its General Assembly with no less than Philippine Football Federation president Nonong Araneta in attendance.

After much convincing, 21 LGU-based clubs from Bohol signed up–paying for their registration fee and traveling all the way from the tourist island to Cebu City–because of one particular purpose.

You see, after combining the Bohol FA and the Cebu FA to form the Central Visayas Regional FA, the PFF has decided to break the two groups again, giving Bohol a chance to form its own FA. Since that merger, members of the Bohol Football Association (BoFA), has been a major headache to the CVFA, undermining most of its moves and showing that it basically couldn’t work together for the good of Bohol Football.

But not everyone in Bohol is like that, hence the 21 clubs who signed up for the CVFA assembly and during the assembly, Nonong Araneta himself clarified that it will be the 21 clubs who will lead in the formation of the new football association for Bohol.

I mean, that’s just common sense, right? If you want to carve out two new associations from the CVFA, it goes without saying that you give the lead to the members of the association.

So the 21 Bohol-based clubs left the assembly with that assurance from the PFF president.

Now here comes PFF general secretary Ed Gastanes, who was not in the assembly and who just threw a monkey wrench in the whole process. I don’t know what came into his mind but he wrote a memo to BoFA, which under the eyes of the PFF no longer exists, and told them that they’d basically be in charge of the formation of the FA and to please accept the 21 clubs as members.

Gastanes’ memo was sent on May 29, just nine days after Nonong spoke at the CVFA general assembly.

If Lady Liberty was a Pinoy football fan, she’d drop the torch and make a resounding slap to the forehead that will be heard all over the world.

Not only is such move questionable, it basically rewards a renegade FA for, to put it bluntly, causing troubles to the legitimate FA as what CVFA has experienced in years.

If what my former boss Jack Biantan said is right, that Mr. Gastanes is eyeing Nonong’s seat then this is a major, major mistake.

A PFF president should encourage everyone to follow the rules, to respect the authority, yet his inclusion of the former BoFA in the formation of the new FA for Bohol is a slap, no only on that, but also on those who worked their asses of.

It is also not a good sign for gen sec to send a memo without checking whether what is written in the memo is correct. Makes you wonder what else has Nonong agreed on or has spoken about but was, a couple of weeks later, reversed by his Gen-Sec.

What will happen next?

I guess, just like the ongoing noontime show war among the networks, “Abangan!”

PFF U19. I got to join the match commissioner’s meeting for the PFF U19 competitions and I tell you, it was a glaring departure from the last one I attended, the Adidas U19 national finals hosted by Cebu way back in 2004.

Under the previous format, which had a local, regional, then national elims, the only chance for teams like Cebu and Socksargen to meet was if both would advance to the championships in the national finals.

Now, they get to face each other and I think that’s good for the competition.

But that’s not what got me excited for Cebu football.

The Center for Excellence will soon be launched and I tell you, listening about the concept of the CoE makes you drool. This Fifa-funded program will change our grassroots and if ran correctly will answer that basic problem in our youth system—up to the U12s, our kids are competitive in the Asean level, but U14s upwards?