Cebu Football - 13th Aboitiz Cup football on today

CEBU, Philippines - The Aboitiz Cup, Cebu’s longest running football tournament, kicks off its 13th edition today at the Aboitiz Sports Field in Brgy. Subangdaku, Mandaue City.

Before the games proper, there will be a short opening ceremony with Aboitiz Foundation president Jon Ramon Aboitiz leading the honored guests.

This year’s edition features the players 8, 10, boys12, 17, men’s open and men’s 38-above, while the distaff side will have the girls 17 and women’s open.

Winning the title will be a lot more tougher as organizers decided to convert the event from a cup-type to league type.

Being a league-type, each team can now enjoy a regular action except in the players 8 and 10 categories, which will be playing for a 9-a-side action since they are yet too young for the 11-a-side battle. All classes, however, will enjoy as much as nine games in the elimination round.

More than the games and title, players and coaches also have something else to look forward to with the Aboitiz Foundation looking into the possibility of offering educational scholarship grants to deserving players.

Aboitiz Foundation president Jon Ramon Aboitiz is open to the idea of giving a scholarship grants to deserving athletes playing in the Aboitiz Cup since the foundation’s trust is geared toward education and values formation.

With that, the Aboitiz Cup richly deserved to be called the premiere football action in Cebu, not only for being able to help out Cebu football become more popular, but also give more inspiration to the youngsters to play well for education.

In another development, the Cebu Football Association, which is handling the Aboitiz Cup, will also be facilitating a try-out for the RP girls under-16 squad today. (THE FREEMAN)