Economics guru a football convert

Dr. Bernie Villegas is well-known both here and abroad as one of the Philippines’ brightest minds in business economics. He is a summa cum laude graduate with Liberal Arts and Commerce degrees at La Salle, one of the topnotchers in the CPA board exams, a doctorate degree holder from Harvard, an Outstanding Young Man awardee in 1972, a distinguished educator with the University of Asia and the Pacific, a much sought-after adviser in business affairs by government and an independent director in several large national and multi-national companies.

While in high school, Dr. Villegas dabbled in football but was never a big fan of the sport until he stayed in Barcelona as a visiting professor at the IESE Business School in 2007-08. In Barcelona, his 10th floor flat overlooked Camp Nou, the biggest football stadium in Europe with a capacity of 99,354 and FC Barcelona’s home building. He could hear the loud cheers from the fans but never bothered to use the binoculars a friend gave him to monitor the games from his bedroom window.

Eventually, he was invited to watch games by FC Barcelona marketing director of Asia Josh Thomson who happens to be former national swimmer Akiko’s brother. Josh was an IESE MBA graduate and grew up in the Philippines. Their links to the home country brought Dr. Villegas and Josh together in Barcelona. Josh, who worked with FC Barcelona for six years and now lives in the US, calls Dr. Villegas his personal mentor.

Although his high school foray into football was hardly memorable, Dr. Villegas was reintroduced to the sport with full impact. He went to Camp Nou to witness a Barcelona match against Gerife and was blown away by a 19-year-old Argentine dynamo who eluded at least six defenders to score a goal in 2007. That opened Dr. Villegas’ heart to football and he became a life-long Lionel Messi fan.

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Today, Dr. Villegas is 77 and said while his love affair with the “beautiful game” came late in life, he’s ready to do his bit in promoting the sport. In fact, Dr. Villegas was named head of the task force organized by Philippine Football Federation (PFF) president Nonong Araneta to lay the groundwork for the creation of the Philippine Football League (PFL). After three years of planning, it appears that the PFL will finally be launched in April, possibly with eight teams, including two in Metro Manila.

The UFL will give way to the PFL with the concept of the new league built around situating teams in different cities around the country. Former national player Danny Moran, who’s helping out the PFL in the areas of grassroots development and futsal, said he’ll look into holding futsal festivals before PFL matches on makeshift courts outside stadiums as a promotional project. Bacolod, Cebu, Makati, Taguig and Biñan are among the cities to be initially represented in the PFL. Ironically, Iloilo, considered a hotbed of Filipino football, is not in the first list.

Dr. Villegas is upbeat about the future of Philippine football and believes the PFL will play a key role in spreading the gospel of the sport. “The greatest advantage of the Philippines is that we have the lowest median age in East Asia (as) 50 percent of Filipinos are below 23,” he said. “That means we have a very large pool of young people who can be trained to play football, starting with futsal in the thousands of barangays all over the archipelago. From the economic point of view, private businesses can be increasingly attracted to support football for brand image promotion or synergy with real estate. In my capacity as a business economist, I am getting more and more inquiries from business conglomerates on how they can fit football into their long-term strategies.”

To put Philippine football into perspective, Dr. Villegas authored a book entitled “Philippine Football – Its Past, Its Future” and it’s a wonderful addition to any sports or even business library. The book is available at Fully Booked outlets at a cost of P650.

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My brother-in-law Jose (Pepito) Genato,, now living in Calgary, is prominently mentioned in the book whose co-authors are distinguished writers and good friends Bong Pedralvez, Bert Ramirez, Rick Olivares, Bill Velasco and Ignacio Dee. One of Pepito’s most memorable achievements was scoring the Philippines’ goal in the 1-0 win over Chinese-Taipei in the second match of a tripleheader topped by a New York Cosmos game, featuring Pele, against Team Honda of Japan at the Aloha Stadium in Hawaii on April 7, 1976.

Pele scored four goals in the Cosmos’ 5-0 win over Team Honda before 21,705 fans. Moran was on the Philippine team with his brother Mike, Pepito, Tonio Gutierrez, Bert Honasan, Vic and Robs Delfino, Inaki Alvarez, Inaki Vicente, Ike Monserrat, Monchu Caballero, Tony Araneta, Eric Gutierrez, Rey Ferraren, Mario Guison and Oliver Gay under coach Juan Cutillas and assistant coach Mike Rey.

In the book’s chapter “Glory Days: We Owe Them,” Pepito was cited as “one of the distinguished products of the first Kasibulan program (and) ... for a decade, generally regarded as the best forward in the country.” Rick and Bert, who collaborated to write the chapter, added, “most opposing defenders looked at him as the one single striker that they had to mark down if their team was to have a chance, a tribute to the remarkable offensive skills of the former San Beda standout ... one of the stars that helped San Miguel to multiple national titles in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Genato also won an outstanding player award from the PFF in 2004 for his feats.”