UAAP to members: If you protest do it now

MANILA, Philippines - Questions on player eligibility will no longer be entertained by the UAAP board after the 72nd basketball season of the country’s premier collegiate league fires off on July 11 at the Araneta Coliseum.

“We already have a gentleman’s agreement within the board to bring up questions on eligibility ahead of time and not in the latter part of the season,” said Anton Montinola of host school FEU.

Controversies on player eligibility have cropped up before, and these seemed to be a pattern where questions arise down the stretch and normally concern players on teams which are doing well in the race.

“Yes, it has happened. So, we have asked each one to raise their questions now if they have any because it suggests malice and bad faith and almost like conduct unbecoming of a gentleman,” said the president of the UAAP Season 72.

The last serious case involved La Salle players Mark Benitez and Tim Gatchalian in 2005, and the Green Archers were forced to surrender the championship trophy they won after beating the FEU Tamaraws in the finals.

Montinola said it’s not a sign of a good sport “to hold on to information (against player eligibility) and bring them out later on just to disrupt the performance of a certain team and so we call on them to bring it out now.”

He said the board will meet tomorrow to go over the papers of all the players.

Another concern which Montinola addressed during yesterday’s PSA Forum at Shakey’s UN Avenue is how the league can cope with scalping, and the very high demand for tickets, especially during games between Ateneo and La Salle.

Games between the two popular teams are so special among their respective alumni that tickets with a face value of less than P500 are being sold for as high as P10,000. And the problem is that there are takers.

Montinola said for this season, they will sell two sets of tickets in days featuring Ateneo and La Salle, like on Aug. 9. The game is set at 1 p.m. at the Big Dome to be followed by FEU vs UE at 5 p.m.

After the Ateneo-La Salle game, fans will be asked to clear the Big Dome, and two hours after the next game will be played.

Montinola said by doing this, the UAAP will actually double the number of tickets for the big game.

“We’ll have two sets of tickets for Aug. 9. In short, we will double the supply. And since we’re talking about the law of supply and demand, then the prices should go down,” said Montinola.

But it’s no assurance as well that ticket prices won’t go sky-high for an Ateneo-La Salle match.

“It’s a fact that even if you hold the game at 3 p.m. people will still watch it. But we want to do something about scalping. And we at FEU, since we only host this once every eight years, want to give it a try. This is our chance. We think it will work. If it does not, then at least we tried,” he said.

Regarding game-fixing, which is almost impossible to prove, Montinola said it’s up to the eight competing schools to educate their players, coaches and other officials about the situation.

“We need to be vigilant. It’s said that this is just college basketball and I don’t know why these people (syndicates) meddle with our affairs,” he said.