‘Slippery slop’ of addiction of Fil-foreign athlete
Second of a series
IS the investment of taxpayer money in Fil-foreign athletes worth it?
I would argue that in 90 percent of the cases, absolutely not. It’s a huge drain of funds, paid for by taxes of Filipino workers, and often it comes at the expense of a more difficult but more proven approach of grassroots development. A few points.
I saw from firsthand experience many of the Fil-foreign athletes live in a veritable dream world that makes a tenuous situation. They want to live “home” in the United States. They want to live and train with US support and US levels of income.
But they don’t play for the US — they play for the Philippines, which pays and supports athletes on a Filipino level of costs. So, they are constantly frustrated and demanding more.
Coaches are more expensive; doctors are more expensive (neither necessarily being better than local Filipino options), and certainly, travel is way more expensive. It is irrefutable that the Fil-foreign athlete is much more costly than a grassroots local peer, sometimes two to three times more expensive.
Maybe it’s only me, but I have a huge moral question on this approach. The Fil-foreign athlete typically pays no taxes to the Philippines whatsoever. They are not residents.
So, what you have in some cases is the grassroots programs, meant to support local Filipinos who live in the Philippines, are gutted and defunded to pay for the Fil-foreign athletes. Let’s think about this.
So, the people who pay the bills get screwed over, lose the grassroots that develops them, and they in turn fund high-cost foreign athletes who don’t pay a penny in taxes? Where is the fairness in that?
Is selling these Fil-foreign athletes on this “dream” really ethical when considering the entirety of their life?
I was a “decent” athlete who, when young, had Olympic dreams. But I was wise enough to know I didn’t have the talent to make it to that level.
So, I kept being involved in sports, I leveraged the crucial skills I learned on the fields of play and went on to a coaching career from the early 1980s, and on to a successful chief executive officer career in some of the world’s most prestigious companies.
I have worked with thousands of athletes, and I always coached the “whole athlete,” including their life outside of sports and after they move into a post-sports life. I am not and was not an “opportunistic” coach who only thinks short term and getting wins for my résumé. No, I care about my athletes for life.