Football(soccer) in the DR?

irishdomician said:

I was looking at some rankings on fifa.com and I saw that the Dominican Republic was ranked 171 in the world. I was shocked, were do they play footy in the DR, are there leagues, pro players? I cant believe it. Does anyone have any info about the team, who to contact, where do they play their games? ANything at all. My dad (Dominican) used to tell me that the priests used to try to make them play football but they hated it and never played. Every Dominican I know says the same thing. Anyway this may be a good oppertunity for me so if I could get some info it would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

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Wow ranked 171 in the world. I always thought DR had terrible soccer teams. I know they are #1 in baseball. But how many countries are there in the world excatly? Maybe there are 171 countries in the world and they are ranked 171 by default. But yeah I have not seen any dominicans playing soccer in dr. I seen baseball, basketball, volleyball and cricket.

I would love to play some amateur (with a big A) football here if anybody know of anywhere that takes place - I have heard that some Italiens or other nationalities have a field Etc. Was it a club?

F?tbol/football in the DR

I could write a very, very long post on this.

Let me say for the sake of brevity, that 34 years ago there wre 12 teams in our First Division until as real a$$hole named Enrique Marchena (since banned from all Olympic activities and from sports in general) forced the universities and educational institutes to leave the league.

The UASD, UNPHU and PUCMM all had good teams and ISA was scouring the campo looking for good local talent. The teams played full league and cup series , and every Sunday there were games in Santo Domingo San Cristobal, Santiago, Moca, La Vega, Villa Tapia, San Francisco de Macoris, San Pedro or Haina.

The really great thing was the development of tremendous rivalries, which, of course, brought more fans to see the games. It was not unusual to see ten or twelve bus loads of students from one or other of the universities travel to the "away" games.

When the do-do hit the fan in 1975, football, as a national sport fell, and IMO, it has never recovered. The games are attended by a few family and friends. I mean, who can root for a team calle Bancreditcard?? Or Escuela Jorge Bauger.

At one time Pel? and the New York Cosmos were here, and so was Cerro from Uruguay. Played to full stadiums, too!.

The DR participated in the CONCACAF, Olympic and World Cup eliminations-never went far, of course, against professional teams-but there was a presence.

There is a phone number in the book for the Federaci?n Dominicana de F?tbol in Santo Domingo , but frankly, I washed my hands a long time ago..

HB