• Mishits

Is Pacquiao facing an identity crisis?

Manny Pacquiao is awarded a natty new jacket as he embarks on his basketball coaching career © Getty Images

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Does anyone - including Manny Pacquiao - know who he is trying to be any more? The man, formerly best known as a boxer, has announced he is moving into a new line of work, taking over as coach of a new professional basketball team in his native Philippines.

He is already a serving politician as well as a fighter and now Pacquiao says he is aiming to build a team capable of winning a Philippine Basketball Association title within three years.

Aficionados of the sport - or anyone who has ever taken the merest passing interest - might ask why a 5ft 7in welterweight has been appointed at all, although Mishits wonders if the big branding opportunity with his new team, which is apparently named after a moderately well-known car manufacturer, had anything to do with it.

Loved though he is by world boxing fans and in his homeland, the Pac-man has come in for a bit of flak in the political bear pit, with some critics daring to suggest he might be spreading himself a bit thin.

A congressman in the southern province of Saranggani, Pacquiao missed 60 out of the 168 days that the legislature sat in its last session, which ended in June 2013.

But you know what they say: a professional sportsman's career is a short one, so why not pack in three highly-demanding (and lucrative?) jobs at the same time?

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd