Talk:EJ Obiena–PATAFA dispute

Reorganization

The article still feels half-completed and not yet encyclopedic. Part of the difficulty is that the source material is fragmented, with each news article providing a bit of news or detail without providing context or background.

Proposals

The article is missing context to understand the motivations, history and external causes of the dispute. I propose titling this section 'Sports Commentary', but other titles might be 'Context', 'History', or 'Analysis'. The following section is a synthesis of source material providing such an analysis. This is not original material, it is a summary and paraphasing of the commentary. It is also not an essay since it is derived from the source material. Unless there are objection I propose the following section is added.

Proposed Sports Commentary

The community of sports journalists, commentators and fans have stated strong opinions both in defense of PATAFA and in support of Obiena.

Some PATAFA supporters have demanded Obiena behave humbly, show respect to his NSA officials, admit his (alleged) mistake and submit to mediation or resolve the issue within the PATAFA.

Other Philippine sports commentators, in support of Obiena, have noticed a culture of authoritarians and an expectation of athlete subservience to NSAs. They've noted NSA officials run their organizations as their own personal fiefdoms. National Filipino athletes are expected to solely devote themselves to their trainings, keep their opinions to themselves, and show their wholehearted gratitude to their NSA. Further, the success of any athlete is believed contingent on the benevolence of the NSA sports officials, therefore officials want to maintain a picture of a national athlete who is a good soldier, someone beholden and humble to sports officials and NSAs. One commentator noted that consistent with this theory, it is clear that PATAFA has been feeding the media half-truths to make it appear everything is Obiena's fault, while PATAFA bears no responsibility. Instead of seeing athletes as discerning, empowered athletes who can think critically and are aware of the issues within and outside Philippine sports, the PATAFA officials see them as brazen individuals who are disruptive and therefore have to be taught a lesson in humility.

In the meantime, elite Filipino athletes are exposed to higher standards in the international arena and have witnessed what it took for rivals from other countries to become world-class. These athletes, in their pursuit to be the best and bring Philippines sports to new heights, have sought far more from the governing bodies and have learned that they must expect more if they are to achieve more in international competitions and take their game to the next level. On January 25, Petrov posted a similar statement on Facebook openly wondering about PATAFA's purpose and motives supporting elite athletes:

From the 7 years of work that I have done with EJ, I have never heard PATAFA or Mr. Philip Juico ask me what they can do to help me develop EJ ... We have improved the Philippine Record by almost one meter and we plan to improve it more. I understand what it takes to build a world class pole vaulter as I am blessed to have done it multiple times in my coaching career. It takes a lot time, knowledge, effort, talent, resources and a bit of luck. In my humble view I have helped a young boy from a country that didn’t have the history or the resources to create a world-class pole vaulter. Now that Ej is finally a top 5 pole vaulter in the world, his own Federation President, Philip Ella Juico kicks him out of the team for nothing....If this Federation is dropping a world-class athlete instead of helping; drops his coach who [has] trained him to be one of the best pole vaulters; brands a sport patron persona non grata who [has] done nothing but helped bring this Filipino boy to where he is now, then I ask what is this federation doing?

As long as there is more direct inline citations (could be repeated) since it would make it clearer what each claim/info is based on. We could only rely on summaries by reliable sources and not summaries by ourself which I suspect it is. Like for example who are these certain commentators? We should attribute it (especially if these are sports officials)? To be honest as it appears its a sloppy case of WP:SYNTHESIS. I still don't find the need for such section. At best, would you like a Third opinion of an uninvolved editor?Hariboneagle927 (talk) 02:29, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

The proposed text has some flaws also "Some PATAFA supporters have demanded Obiena behave humbly, show respect to his NSA officials, admit his (alleged) mistake and submit to mediation or resolve the issue within the PATAFA." – Who are exactly these supporters? There is a PATAFA letter of support by multiple players and coach stating they support the federation's probe against Obiena, respect NSA officials, nothing about mediation. And there is Philippine Sports Commission Butch Ramirez who has expressed this stance but also called for the Juico to resolve the issue with Obiena like a father. Hence the importance of attribution so pardon if you did not the intention to lump Ramirez with the supporters.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 02:36, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

References