Community Journalism
In May 2015, the UP Football Field was reconstructed after an agreement between the Former UP President Alfredo Pascual and Futbol Pilipinas Azkals Foundation, Inc. (FPAFI) to establish the UP Diliman Sports Complex Zone. A year later, Azkals Team Manager Dan Palami confirms that FPAFI pulled out of the agreement.
According to Alleje, "They started working on the football field which was behind Bahay Ng Alumni, and they targeted it to be done within 6 months, like before 2015 or 2016 ended. But what happened was the construction kept delaying because it took 2 years for them to find a new bidder because the old bidder dropped"
The University of the Philippines Women’s Football Team (UP WFT) believed they could have been back-to-back UAAP champions in 2016, had they had a proper football field.
The space in which they train, the UP Football field, has been under construction for three years now. The further delays in the construction has forced the team to practice in alternative training venues such as UP Sunken Garden and UP College of Human Kinetics (CHK) Gym.
“Some of our players got injured really badly. We have at least 4 cases of ACL and others got MCL tears, and then we have hamstring, quads, and ankle problems. From hip down, everything is bad. I think [training in UP Sunken Garden and UP CHK Gym] it really impacted the team in terms of the intensity of training. Imagine training in a basketball court and then competing in a standard FIFA size, so thats really hard on the running and the kicking”, UP WFT co-captain Cassandra Alleje said.
UPWFT’s disadvantages of training in the UP Sunken Garden and UP CHK Gym
This led to the diminished chances of the team to bring the UAAP (University Athletic Association of the Philippines) championship title back to Diliman.
“The team was really struggling to get past the fact that we didn’t have a field.” Alleje said.
In 2015, their home, the UP Football Field, was envisioned to become UP’s Sports Complex Zone. It was a development that the team and most varsity teams would benefit from but years have passed and its reconstruction is still unfinished.
UP Women’s Football Team: Beaten but Not Broken
The unfinished construction of the proposed Sports Complex Zone resulted in the displacement of many varsity teams.The UP Football Field is a venue where the men’s and women’s football team, baseball, softball and track and field facilitate their training.
In the case of the UP WFT, the team has to find their own venue for training and pay for its rental fees. They began training in BGC Turf, Emperador Stadium, FEU Fern and Marikina.
Resources are limited for UP’s student-athletes.
Aside from lacking space for training in the Diliman campus, teams are struggling over the limited number of buses available to take them to and from official team practices and games in tournaments.
Fifth year UP WFT member Mary Rose Obra says that they have to shoulder their own transportation expenses when they go to their training. The team makes their own arrangements to attend their practices, such as carpooling or availing of Uber or Grab services.
“Pag hindi kami nakapagreserve kasi nakukuha na ng ibang teams yung bus, kailangan namin mag-Uber… And yung Uber, mahal, tsaka yung team ang nagbabayad for it.” Obra added.
Alleje says that the expenses for 2015 and 2016 have not yet been reimbursed.
“We try to build up the funds and then file for reimbursement, but we haven’t even gotten our reimbursement for 2015–2016 and it’s already 2018,” she added.
After their training, the athletes need to return to UP Diliman to attend their classes for the day.
This season, the UP WFT has been training in the Sunken Garden at least twice a week because of an alumni sponsor who wants the student-athletes to train on-campus. However, this space is not recommended for football training because of the rocky surface and makeshift goal posts, which both lack the dimensions of a standard football field.
UP Diliman’s student-athletes are entitled to be taken care of throughout their stay in the University, under the Varsity Athletic Admission System (VAAS) Program. It is a program which authorizes the UP College of Human Kinetics (CHK) to recruit exemplary athletes and dancers who may not passed or taken the University of the Philippines College Admissions Test (UPCAT). In the VAAS Contract, it states that VAAS awardees need train and compete in their varsity team for 4 years to maintain their status as UP students.
Student-athletes that make it to the UAAP line-up are granted a VAAS scholarship, which includes 22 members of the UP WFT. Aside from the scholarship, student-athletes under this program are granted other benefits such as uniforms, equipment, practice and game allowance, tutorials, sport and academic counseling, and sports medical assistance, in exchange for service to the University.
Over the past five years, at least 4 people have sustained ACL injuries as a result of harsh training conditions and lack of facilities.
“I think it really impacted the team in terms of the intensity of training because we ended up training in UP Gym, a basketball court,” Alleje said.
The team’s surgeries and therapy sessions are sourced by the team themselves, from alumni or friends and family.
UP WFT Co-Captain Ikee Aquino is one of the athletes who got a partial ACL tear. She decided not to push through with her surgery, but did therapy sessions through the aid of a sponsor.
“UP really didn’t help. We were really lucky to be sponsored by Kinetochore so I had to go to therapy thrice a week for about two months,” Aquino said.
UP WFT member Nicole Adlawan says that she had to pay for her own surgery and was able to get therapy through the team’s sponsors as well.
Despite the difficulties and challenges the UP WFT faced the past season, its members are ready to suit up for the next. With a completed football field on campus or without one, the UP WFT will still be training in the hope of claiming another championship title.
A promising rookie of the team, Eva Barnes, says that one of the reasons she chose to play for UP is because of the team’s dynamics and motivation to win. “They are a re-building team pa, so I wanted to play and help,” she added.
As of February 2018, the construction of the UP Football Field is being resumed. Although it is unknown to date who is funding the construction, this development gives hope to UP student-athletes who devote their blood, sweat and tears to their sport — for UP.