By Rey Joble

AIR21 will need more voting numbers to convince members of the Philippine Basketball Association board of governors in its bid to transfer its existing franchise to Burger King.

A member of the board, who requested anonymity, told Standard Today that the Express management is having a difficult time persuading other board members of their plan of transferring the franchise to the new team Burger King without paying the necessary fees to the PBA.

?For sure, mahihirapan sila,? said the board member. ?It is really not clear whether Bert Lina is the majority owner of Burger King as it has been very evident that Mikee Romero is now the one running the basketball affairs of the team. Air21 has to establish whether it has control both of the company or the basketball team?

Romero is one of the individual shareholders of Burger King, 60 percent of which is reportedly owned by Lina, head of the Lina Group, which also owns Air21. The other individual shareholders include Manuel V. Pangilinan and Ricky Vargas of Talk N Text, Lito Alvarez of Air21 and Wilson Young of Tanduay.

The same board member also revealed that several members of the board did not sit well with the idea of just allowing Air21 to simply transfer the franchise to Burger King.

But Alvarez, the board representative of Air21 in the PBA, explained that the main reason why their group will carry Burger King is to give the product the exposure it needs now.

Alvarez is the incoming PBA chairman, which means that he will most likely become the board governor of Burger King once the franchise is transferred.

?We have promoted FedEx before, then Air21. It is about time now that we promote Burger King, the majority of which is owned by Bert Lina,? said Alvarez. ?Burger King is not also a sister team of Talk N Text, even though Pangilinan and Vargas have shares on the company because it?s their personal investment and not an investment of PLDT, which owns Talk N Text.?