THE sports extravaganza of the Philippine National Volleyball Federation — the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship — opened by no less than President Bongbong Marcos last Thursday, is careening toward becoming the worst international sports event hosted by the Philippines.
The event, financed with a staggering P2 billion of largely taxpayers’ money, featuring 31 of the world’s top men’s teams (the Philippines as host is the 32nd but is not considered world class), has drawn pitiful crowds.
The sparse attendance probably puzzles the visiting teams that play to overflow crowds wherever they go, especially when these highly rated teams are matched against equally highly rated opponents, which is exactly the scenario in this world championship where US$1 million is the prize money.
Cold reception from fans
Sadly, while the world’s best volleyball players are tossing, smashing, chasing, and digging balls, sometimes as far as the front rows, risking limbs and bones, there’s almost no one around to cheer the effort.
A check of attendance records the first three days showed games drawing an average of just 3,182.6 fans. The four-game bill on Sept. 14 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum was the worst, attracting an average of just 1,208.75 fans per game - a cold reception from fans which organizers hope to perk up with a big cut in ticket prices.
Worse, crowd favorite Japan, which drew the highest attendance for games not featuring the home team, is headed home after a second straight loss.
The FIVB leadership that flew in to witness what Ramon Suzara, president of the PNVF, very likely promised them — that the country has an enormous volleyball following — must be scratching their heads at the sight of a stadium with too many empty seats.
At the same time, one hazards a guess that the FIVB officials, led by its president Favio Azevedo, cannot be that unhappy. They’ve been paid $25 million — yes, that’s in US dollars, or the equivalent of P1.4 billion — by Suzara and the PNVF for the hosting rights. But even the most jaded among these FIVB officials must have asked themselves how a country this impoverished could spend more than a billion peros for an event that will be forgotten in two weeks.
The officials came in just several days after devastating floods submerged many parts of the country and weeks after investigations into flood-control funds unearthed corruption at the highest levels of government.
The public may now be asking: Is it possible some people made money from hosting this event? That is a question for the Commission on Audit when it reviews the PNVF’s books. The tournament used taxpayers’ money, after all, by involving the PSC.
Suzara’s people at the association (who followed their president like lemmings), plus the unthinking fellows at the Philippine Sports Commission (which, by the way, helped underwrite this folly with its P685 million contribution), and the misinformed people in Malacañang (who backed this totally wasteful event) are probably wondering: “Where’s the crowd? Where are the people?”
They’re everywhere actually, just not at the stadiums where the volleyball festival is taking place. A pity because there’s a lot to enjoy in these world-class matches that will not be returning to the country, if they ever will, for the next several years.
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