Waiting game

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

As the wait for the government’s directive to allow training of professional teams continued on Tuesday, the PBA said it could stretch its restart to workouts up to the second week of September at the latest.

The initial plan to resume training on Wednesday won’t be pushing through as the league is still awaiting the signing of the joint administrative order (JAO) of the Philippine Sports Commission, Games and Amusements Board (GAB), Department of Health and Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).

PBA commissioner Willie Marcial is upbeat that ball clubs can resume training in the next few weeks. But while it remains uncertain when the JAO and the IATF resolution will be released, Marcial said the league can only stretch the resumption of workouts up to Sept. 14, otherwise, he would have no choice but to call what was supposed to be the league’s milestone 45th season.

“We would want the season to start in October so September is the latest when we can have workouts,” Marcial said, adding that the league remains concerned over the spike of COVID-19 cases in the country, which has failed to flatten the curve with a total of 70,764 cases as of July 21.

Marcial earlier said the league will make a decision on the resumption of its 45th season in August, a deadline which could be extended by the second week of September if the JAO is not released by next month.

The announcement of the government that pro teams are free to resume training early this month sparked hope for the league to salvage at least the Philippine Cup.

But as it stands, the waiting game continues for professional leagues, including the Philippines Football League.

Practicing before the release of the JAO and the IATF resolution has actually put Blackwater in trouble after owner Dioceldo Sy admitted that the Elite engaged in a shoot around a few weeks ago.

With the threat of sanctions hanging over his team, Sy declared the Blackwater franchise for sale at P150 million.

Blackwater was fined P100,000 by the league for the infraction and could also be sanctioned by the GAB, with which Sy offered his apologies to on Monday. Chair Abraham Mitra, though, said that the agency is still studying what fines or sanctions it will levy on the PBA squad.

Meanwhile, Sy met with Marcial via a conference call on Tuesday, where the Blackwater owner reiterated his commitment to the league.

Marcial said the league has sent Sy a letter, the contents of which he begged off from disclosing, though an Inquirer source on Monday bared that board chair Ricky Vargas wanted Marcial to confirm a number of things with Sy, one of them being his statement that he felt “offended, bullied and pushed to the wall” when sanctions for that illegal gathering were being readied by the GAB and the PBA. INQ