Villaflor: A football village on the horizon

THE landscape of Cebu football is due for some expansive “seismic activity.”


According to Cebu Football Association (CFA) president Richard Montayre, the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) picked Cebu as the beneficiary of the latest Fifa Goal Project.

“The Fifa Goal Project in Cebu will involve the creation of a football village,” Montayre told me during the DRB Football Jamboree last weekend.

As its centerpiece, the football village will have a 40,000-seater stadium with an international standard football pitch. The stadium will be surrounded by rows of regular and smaller-sized pitches, a field for beach football, covered courts for futsal, a structure for offices, lodging facilities, among others. As a sports tourism destination, the village will allow development for hotels and commercial structures.


Montayre’s description of the football village, which will be gradually built in phases, left me wide-eyed with wonder. Not so long ago, the idea would have been excessively ambitious, if not outlandish. With Fifa’s renewed belief in Philippine football and the no-nonsense approach of the PFF, football infrastructure in the country is slowly taking shape, and it makes sense that strategic Cebu will be part of such growth, starting with the football village.


But where exactly in Cebu would the football village rise?


The CFA is considering two areas. One is the Capitol property in Lahug, Cebu City currently occupied by the military’s Camp Lapu-Lapu, which is set to be transferred. The other is within a 350-hectare estate of the Aboitizes in Liloan town, some 19 kilometers from Cebu City.


Since it is situated in the heart of Metro Cebu, the ideal location appears to be the Lahug property.

Montayre said their proposal received positive feedback during the meeting between the CFA, represented by Eugene Ynclino, and Capitol last week.

In their initial talks, the Province is open to the CFA’s proposal to use and develop 15-hectares of the Lahug property for the project, at no cost to the government. After 25 to 30 years, the structures in the property will be turned over to Cebu Province.

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