109 football teams open bid in 14th Aboitiz Cup today

A total of 109 teams will begin their campaign for football supremacy as the 14th Aboitiz Cup kicks off today at the Aboitiz Sports Field at the North Reclamation Area in Mandaue City.

Tournament director Eleazar Toledo said it is very important for all teams to be present during the opening ceremony at 8 a.m. because the drawing of lots will follow immediately.

A total of 28 matches will be played after the opening ceremony, which will be graced by Philippine Football Federation’s (PFF) director of competition Cyril Dofitas and board of director and chairman of competition Dick Empirado.

After a few speeches, the tournament will be declared open by Jandoni F. Aboitiz, CEO of AboitizLand Inc.

Last-minute changes have been implemented to the tournament, said Toledo.

Instead of all categories being played in a league-type format, some will follow the cup-type format. Toledo said this is done so as not to further extend the tournament, which is expected to end by March.

“We have done this because there are many teams seeing action. So categories that have 10 or lesser than 10 teams will follow the league-type while categories with more than 10 teams will follow the cup type,” Toledo said.

Categories which will follow the league-type are Players 6, Girls 17, Boys 14 and Men’s Under 23. The team with the most number of wins will be declared category champions.

The rest of the categories will follow the cup-type with teams to be divided in two brackets.

TEAM REQUESTS

Meanwhile, Toledo also said that they are considering the request of the Don Bosco Technology Center (DBTC) to give consideration to their teams who will be seeing action in the National Milo Little Olympics and the Central Visayas Regional Athletics Association (CVIRAA) meet.

The National Milo Little Olympics is ongoing in Lingayen, Pangasinan while the CVIRAA meet will be held in Bohol from Nov. 27 to Dec. 2.

Aside from DBTC, also given consideration are Don Bosco Boys Home (DBBH) and Canduman.

Toledo said that Aboitiz Cup will strictly follow its schedule and said it will not give leeway to school activities—except for the Milo and CVIRAA—and examinations. He said that as much as they want to, the tournament will suffer since it will go beyond their expected tournament end date.  CORRESPONDENT MARS G. ALISON