Sasikumar a key player in new Philippines pro football league

SINGAPORE — When the Philippines Football League (PFL), the country’s first-ever professional football competition, kicks off next year, it will have former Singapore international defender R Sasikumar to thank.

Reason: The 41-year-old, who is now the managing director of his own sports marketing agency, Red Card Group, had played an instrumental role in helping the Philippines Football Federation’s (PFF) set up the PFL.

Explaining his role, the ex-national defender said: “It’s an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) project, and they got me involved as a consultant to help conceptualise the structure and the format of the league, as well as do some market research.

“So I guided the PFF through the initial stages, and it will now be taking over the full responsibility of opening and running the league.

“But I’ll still be there as a mentor and ensuring the league is headed in the right direction.”

The PFL will replace the existing top-tier United Football League (UFL), a semi-professional competition started in 2009 that featured teams based only in the capital, Manila.

Scheduled to kick off in April, the PFL will feature at least six teams, with each side representing a city or a region. Interested clubs that comply with the PFF’s Club Licensing Regulations will have until next month to apply to join the league.

Importantly, though, the PFL will be privatised, which will allow investors to monetise the assets of the clubs.

“The PFL will be privatised and out of the hands of the country’s football association,” explained Sasikumar, who was also involved in the privatisation of the Malaysia Super League (MSL) last year. “It will run as a commercial entity and rely on three main pillars of revenue: Sponsorship, sales of match tickets and hospitality packages, on top of funding from the central pool of the league. They can also go into other revenue streams — such as merchandising and monetising digital content.

“The new league will also be spread out throughout the country and put in economic hubs where there’s commercial value, which will likely help to bring in more income.

“Essentially, the club owners will take a more proactive approach to ensuring their teams are doing well, on and off the pitch, because ultimately they’ve invested in the clubs.”

While basketball, boxing and billiards are the more popular sports in the Philippines, the impending launch of the PFL is a sign that football is growing rapidly in stature.

The standard of Philippines football has also been improving over the past few years. The national team is now the top-ranked South-east Asian nation and stands at an all-time high of 124th in the Fifa world rankings.

And Sasikumar believes the PFL will help the Philippines grow into a regional footballing powerhouse.

“As it is, they already have a good team and football is a rapidly growing sport in the country,” he said. “They’ve also got a lot of players with mixed heritage who are currently playing football outside of the country, and I expect that many of them will want to come back to play in the PFL.

“The clubs will now have more money to spend, and so they’ll be able to sign better players, which will make the league more competitive. This, in turn, will lead to an overall improvement in the country’s footballing standards.”

Agreeing, Philippines national midfielder Manuel Ott told TODAY that he expects the PFL to be a game changer for the sport in the country.

“The league will be a good step in helping establish Philippines football even more,” said Ott, who plays for Filipino side Ceres FC. “I especially like the idea of spreading (the clubs) outside of Manila, so people will get to know more about the sport.

“Basketball is still the biggest sport here, but the popularity of football is rising, and the PFL will give that a boost.”