FILE–The Philippine Azkals throughout their pleasant in opposition to Nepal at Rizal Memorial Stadium. AZKALS PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–The Philippine Soccer Federation (PFF) confirmed Monday that it’ll now not use the well-known “Azkals” moniker that has been the identification of the nation’s males’s soccer workforce for nearly twenty years.
Workforce supervisor Freddy Gonzalez stated the choice got here with the intention of specializing in the brand new path the PFF administration desires to have with the lads’s workforce, significantly its need to have equal identification with each homegrown gamers and overseas-based counterparts generally often called Fil-foreigners.
“We aren’t utilizing the Azkals identify anymore as a result of it doesn’t match with the brand new path the workforce goes,” Gonzalez stated after the PFF held a press convention saying the appointment of latest coach Tom Saintfiet at Studio 300 in Makati Metropolis.
“We really feel that it already had its time and we now don’t take into account overseas-based gamers as half Filipino. Everyone seems to be Filipino and we’re all Filipino,” added Gonzalez.
The identify had been used for the reason that mid-2000s, used as a reference to an area time period to explain a road canine. It turned an much more widespread moniker when the Philippines pulled off an upset of Vietnam within the group stage of the 2010 Asean Soccer Federation Cup on the latter’s dwelling pitch in Hanoi.
Former workforce supervisor Dan Palami, who resigned in January, is claimed to personal the Azkals trademark, and, in keeping with Gonzalez, even supplied to show the identify over to the PFF in order that the moniker can nonetheless be used.
However the PFF stated that it will slightly take a distinct path. In actual fact, the federation had been utilizing the phrases “males’s nationwide workforce” or “MNT” in its press releases.
“Whether or not we provide you with a brand new moniker or the followers provide you with the brand new moniker, that’s one thing will simply occur over time,” stated Gonzalez, including that addressing the moniker state of affairs could also be addressed after the Philippines’ two World Cup/Asian Cup Qualifiers matches in opposition to Iraq in late March.
