Search This Blog

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

How is ABP, AFFP, GFL, ATFAP and AFDL different? Explanation of confusing terms

So many similar words

Okay. So we have ABP which stands for ArenaBall Philippines, we also have AFFP which stands for American Football Federation of the Philippines, another one is ATFAP which is American Tackle Football Association of the Philippines, GFL is Gridiron Football League Philippines, AFDL American Football Developmental League and NGLP National Gridiron League Pilipinas. There are so many groups related to american football in the Philippines and almost all are the same for the average filipino eyes. What sets each of these group and members apart?

So little resources

We have a problem though, there is a little information that can be found on the internet about all of the groups being mentioned above. The best way is to talk someone involved in any of the said groups but while we haven't found someone of that stature, the only thing we can do for now is speculate.

This is where we come in

The first i'd like to do is differentiate the words "association" , "federation", and "league". They all look the same. There should be a difference. A quick google reveals the following :

Association - a group of people organized for a joint purpose
Federation - an organization or group within which smaller divisions have some degree of internal autonomy
League - a group of sports clubs that play each other over a period for a championship

Gridiron football is another term for American Football. A term widely used in North America and Canada

Is AFFP is to PBL as ATFAP is to PBA a good analogy?

To put it in perspective, the GFL (Gridiron Football League Philippines) , AFDL (American Football Developmental League) and NGLP (National Gridiron League Pilipinas) are all members of AFFP American Football Federation of the Philippines, led by Tim Beasley.

ATFAP (American Tackle Football Association of the Philippines) by Bernardo Palma II on the other hand has ABP (ArenaBall Philippines) and PFFL (Philippine Flag Football League).

You see, AFFP and ATFAP are on the same level of competition. The two separate groups are both wanting to introduce and establish American Football as a popular sport here in the country. They have their own separate leagues but only the ATFAP claims the membership of IFAF, International Federation of American Football , the international governing body of American Football based and founded from France.

Disclaimer : I can't find any resources that says AFFP is also a member of IFAF.

Can you guys follow? For those who know the exact difference, are we correct? Please say it on the comments below.

Update : There's a lot of hullabaloo going on with blog post so just to remind the readers, like what i've said above, until such time that we be able to talk to people running these groups, all the understanding we had are based from how we understand them thru internet news and pages. Anyways, I was able to speak with representatives from ATFAP and AFFP, and they both provided their feedback or will provide their feedbacks on weekend so i will update this post soon.

On PBA - PBL analogy, I apologize if you feel offended by it. I'd like to clarify, and this is what i've been telling people, the analogy is not to compare ATFAP and AFFP to PBA and PBL where in one is now defunct and another is a premiere league. The idea is to set the perspective to the average filipino (like me) who does not know or does little about american football how ATFAP, AFFP and other acronyms you can see above are related to one another. I guess I'll just have to find a better analogy that works for everybody :) 

References :
http://ph.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/thepassionatefan/meet-philippine-punishers-very-own-american-football-team-074507303.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines_national_American_football_team
http://sports.inquirer.net/112485/tim-tebows-game-gets-poc-ok
http://www.arenaballphilippines.com.ph/about.html
http://affp.ph/about-us/

No comments:

Post a Comment