Who owns the players?

Two eyebrow-raising stories caught our attention this week, necessitating clarification of the rights of athletes and of leagues over them. The answers won’t be pretty, but they will be real.

First, volleyball players Alyssa Valdez and Jia Morado were barred by their mother team Creamline from playing for the national team in the Philippine Superliga (PSL) Invitational Conference. The former Ateneo Lady Eagles are currently under contract with the Cool Smashers, who are deep into their campaign in the semifinals of the Premier Volleyball League’s Reinforced Conference. Still, Rebisco, Creamline’s mother company, guaranteed that Valdez and Morado would still be attending practices for the Philippine team. They have. Valdez, in particular, missed some important games of Creamline last year while suiting up in the SEA Games and other tournaments. She promised to focus on her mother team this year.

Creamline is well within its rights to do this, for several reasons. Firstly, their contract with the two players came in the absence of any requirement from the national team. Secondly, they have even sponsored the national team, so no one can (wrongly) accuse them of being selfish. Third, they are a contender in the PVL. Fourth, the only limitation (and a logical one, at that) is the appearance in the PSL, a rival league. Therefore, Creamline is merely protecting its investment in two of the best players in the country.

This all boils down to the absence of full-time national teams. The norm has been to hastily slap together selections and give them a few weeks (or if they’re lucky, months) to prepare for in international competition. If the athletes were under contract to play for the country in the first place, then any commercial team that acquires their services must adjust to the national team’s schedule of practices and games. Of course, the downside is that many great players develop overuse injuries that inevitably shorten their careers. Imagine practicing for your school, commercial team and the national team. You’d sleep through all of Sunday, and still be aching all over. We’ve seen many players hurt their knees, ankles and lower backs from too much playing. 

Philippine Rugby had the right idea a few years ago to step into negotiations between national players and Japanese club teams that recruited them. The national team asserted its right to reserve the players for the rare international matches well ahead of time, so as not to create any conflict when the time came. Unfortunately, some of the Japanese clubs did not comply, and the players were stuck in the middle. This started a continuing tug-of-war for the players.

Yao Ming had a very unusual contract when he played for the Houston Rockets. First, his original team the Shanghai Sharks, received a fee for “developing” him. On top of this, the Rockets were required to release him to the Chinese national team whenever the Asian Games or Olympic Games were due. This prevailed throughout most of Yao’s career, until he himself questioned the agreement’s validity. It also contributed to his injuries later on in his NBA career. This only happened because he was brought up in a communist country, and the national government acted like it owned him.

The other bit of news was the NCAA’s announcement that it would ban foreign players across all sports beginning with Season 96 or the year 2020. Foreign student-athletes have been dominating basketball beginning with San Beda’s Sam Ekwe in Season 82. Since then, basketball in particular has been a showcase of foreign talent. 

To begin with, the NCAA gave competitive balance as its reason for the move. After all, not all schools believe in recruiting foreign athletes to win games. Letran College has been a strong opponent to having foreign athletes. As long as the league uniformly applies the rule change, then there should be no problem. Will it guarantee competitive balance? Perhaps, perhaps not. The good news is that when Calvin Abueva was with San Sebastian, he motivated the big men of other schools to work harder. 

Players aspiring to turn pro can look at it in one of two ways. First, they can see it as a greater opportunity to succeed, given that there will be no more foreign centers standing between them and the basket. On the other hand, those who realize that they will play against foreign players full-time with the national team and most of the time in the PBA, may opt to get a leg up on the competition by joining the UAAP, instead. Either way, the player chooses his own best path to success.