MANILA, Philippines – Thirty-two nations, one host.
That was the eyebrow-raising opening spiel the Philippine Nationwide Volleyball Federation (PNVF) rolled out greater than a 12 months earlier than the nation’s bold internet hosting of the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Males’s World Championship, the game’s prime occasion and biennial spectacle.
Emboldened after the landmark internet hosting of the 2023 FIBA World Cup in basketball, Philippine sports activities officers additional pushed the boundaries of Filipino hospitality and challenged stakeholders by bidding for 3 extra world-level occasions — the FIVB worlds being by far the most important one.
Two different hosted tournaments additionally carried historic significance later within the 12 months: the 2025 FIFA Futsal Ladies’s World Cup and the 2025 FIG Junior World Creative Gymnastics Championships.
On the floor stage, the occasions have been hailed as large successes and regarded the half as effectively.
Although not with out a heartbreaking end to its underdog run, Alas Pilipinas proved it might grasp with the utmost greatest within the FIVB worlds, as Italy finally ran away with the world championship in a improbable knockout remaining and emotionally-charged closing ceremony.
The Filipina5 lived the dream and almost gave nightmares to their a lot established opponents in a picturesque promotion of futsal’s international development, as FIFA powerhouse Brazil finally received the inaugural gold medal within the 16-nation match.
In the meantime, rising star Eldrew Yulo breached the rostrum twice within the FIG junior worlds, proving he’s no mere poster boy of the 74-country, 750-athlete occasion, nor simply the youthful brother of double Olympic champion Carlos Yulo.
With the 2025 sports activities calendar coming to an in depth, nevertheless, the necessary retrospective query should be requested if Philippine sports activities have been to additional evolve on the juncture of the last decade’s second half:
Was all of it value it?
The ability (and privilege) of funding
As Philippine Sports activities Fee (PSC) chairman Patrick “Pato” Gregorio succinctly put it earlier than the FIG worlds, internet hosting world occasions and supporting Filipino athletes is an “funding.”
Time and, most significantly, cash, will inevitably be poured in copious quantities – reportedly within the multibillion-peso vary mixed for the FIVB, FIFA and FIG – simply to drag off considered one of these worldwide tournaments.
And with nice spending comes nice scrutiny.
With out undermining the efforts of those that tirelessly labored to make these occasions occur, the negatives should nonetheless be put into gentle to pave the way in which for smoother future hostings, as there’ll at all times be room for enchancment if egos of these in cost will be put aside.
Ticket pricing, particularly, rises as a prime sore level, particularly after the 2023 FIBA World Cup and 2025 FIVB worlds.
Whereas not a problem for area of interest sports activities like futsal and gymnastics, volleyball followers winced in monetary ache as ticket costs initially soared to the five-digit vary, peaking at round P18,000 for courtside and starting from P4,000 to P8,000 a pop within the greater sections.
Respectable seats, ticketed as soon as each two common video games and as soon as per playoff recreation, at first value greater than the common one-day live performance of world-class artists — an issue that even reached the eye of the Senate.
Irrespective of how former PNVF president Ramon “Tats” Suzara spins it, one-game ticket prices close to and even above the nation’s month-to-month minimal wage are usually not value factors meant to draw Filipino followers, and the federation finally folded with large reductions till the ultimate day.
In spite of everything, even in worldwide occasions, Filipinos merely should come first when within the Philippines.
Hospitable hosts, inhospitable areas
As locals struggled with venues’ ticket hubs, foreigners, in the meantime, grappled with the venues themselves.
In each the FIVB worlds and the FIFA Futsal World Cup, shortcomings in enviornment sanitation — although lengthy normalized by Filipinos — have been small, however noticeable stains in what have been in any other case world-class venues just like the Araneta Coliseum and PhilSports Area.
Whereas corrective measures have been finally made to uphold reputations contained in the gates, injury was nonetheless being finished outdoors the premises, as locals and vacationers alike all suffered via inevitable, world-infamous Metro Manila visitors simply to get to the venues.
Even the Gymnastics Affiliation of the Philippines (GAP), which really hit a house run by selecting the Marriott Grand Ballroom as a sensible occasion and athlete coaching hub for the FIG junior worlds, nonetheless couldn’t totally fight the logistical burden of simply ushering followers into the airport-neighboring venue.
Apparently, each the PNVF and Philippine Soccer Federation (PFF) nailed the lone, long-term answer to fight metropolis visitors, however each considerably failed to stay the touchdown.
The organizations flexed the Philippines’ mass transit choices LRT and MRT by integrating them in pre-event promotional campaigns, and even supplied limitless free rides, however then gatekept them only for accredited athletes, media, and utility personnel, not ticket-holders.
Actually, this follow was already in place even in the course of the 2023 FIBA World Cup, with free prepare rides additionally restricted to people with official occasion IDs.
With PSC chairman Gregorio repeatedly hawking the concept of “sports activities tourism,” small gestures like free prepare and bus carousel rides to paying followers can definitely go a good distance in making the hopelessly grim picture of Metro Manila — up to now nonetheless the one viable metropolis to host such large occasions — only a tad bit brighter.
Love the Philippines, overlook Manila
Ought to the Philippines proceed to bid for world sports activities occasions, just like the upcoming 2029 FIVB Volleyball Ladies’s World Championship, extra main steps will be taken to additional enhance the nation as a world sporting hotbed.
Incrementally transferring tournaments away from Metro Manila is a good begin, because it theoretically forwards the PSC agenda of “sports activities tourism” and encourages city development in different provinces round their very own arenas.
Offered there could be environment friendly transportation to and from the airports and metropolis facilities, bustling areas like Bulacan, Cebu, Ilocos Sur, Davao, Common Santos Metropolis, and lots of different locations are already on their solution to being able to treading worldwide sporting waters.
The FIVB thought-about the Philippine Area in Bulacan for the World Championship, whereas FIFA already greenlighted the Victorias Metropolis Coliseum in Negros Occidental for the Futsal World Cup, however each plans in the end fell via, possible as a result of accessibility points.
No matter the place future worldwide occasions could be hosted, organizers ought to at all times look again and mirror on wrongs greater than rights. It’s foolhardy to solely deal with the positives and anticipate points will finally self-correct, most particularly when taxpayer cash is concerned.
In a rustic poisoned by incompetence, corruption and social division, sports activities is one efficient, albeit momentary, antidote to those ills.
Seeing the identical societal issues in Philippine sports activities whereas inviting the world to look at doesn’t do anybody any favors. – Rappler.com
