PH league eyes 7-a-side World Cup 2019 hosting

MANILA - The country's pioneering 7-a-side football league is kicking off its second season with higher stakes Monday, as organizers seek to spread the movement nationwide and across Asia.

The 7's Football League (7's FL), created by former national football team players and professional footballers, begins its second run on Monday, this time with more teams playing and a chance to compete in a global tournament in Mexico up for grabs.

"The fans can expect more goal-scoring opportunities, a lot of excitement, better organization, we’ll be having 3 refs (referees) on board, we have a nice set of guidelines, rules to speak of, and then the competition will still be high," said Anton del Rosario, former Azkals (national team) player and Kaya Football Club captain who is the league’s lead organizer.

The 7's FL is the first league to introduce in the Philippines the 7-a-side concept: seven players each playing 30-minute games at half pitch, aiming for smaller goals.

• READ: Manila's first 7-a-side league hopes to show Pinoys football is not hard to love

The league will see action at the McKinley Hill Stadium at the Bonifacio Global City for 11 Mondays until October, with the goal of not just finding a champion team but building an "all-star" roster for the World Club Championship of 7-a-side football in Cancun, Mexico.

The league's impending international expansion comes after 7's FL was affiliated with the international 7-a-side association, becoming only the second from Asia next to India to join the emerging movement.

The global 7-a-side league currently has less than 20 member nations, but the prospects are looking up, said Del Rosario.

"What happened after the first-season is that the international organization got in touch with me and wanted to affiliate our league with the international league," he told ABS-CBN News.

"So now we're affiliated, we're allowed to join the World Club Championships and the World of 7-a-side football," he said when reached by phone Saturday.

10 TEAMS COMPETING

Ten teams will compete this season, six of which are newcomers featuring football coaches, foreign players, former pros and students, while the rest are returning to seek glory anew at the Emperador pitch.

Fresh blood include Tondo FC, Ghana FC, Futbol Funatics, Real Amigos, Western Bicutan FC and Enderun FC. Pioneering teams Laro FC, Matu Deportivo and Stallions are joining the fray to try and take the title from last year's champions, the Super Eagles.

By the end of the tournament, the league will crown a champion, recognize top goal scorers, and put together a selection team of 12 to send to Cancun for the global tournament in April 2019.

The "all-star" group will feature three from expansion team Tondo FC, up to three celebrity players, and six from those who "do well from this season," Del Rosario said.

A slot is also reserved for the winner of a video competition on the season's highlights, open to all content creators.

"What will happen is people who document the games put together creative videos for the 7's football league, come down, post whatever they have, whatever they’ve created, tag us and hopefully, they come [to the games] more than once to check out the league and then the winner of this competition will be coming with us and the selection team to Cancun," Del Rosario said.

2019 WORLD CUP HOSTING

The league is eyeing to spread 7-a-side football outside Metro Manila, with Del Rosario pursuing prospects in Cebu and Bacolod.

"We’re looking to spread it out and sort of generate love for football in the country,"

He is also working at partnerships in Guam and Brunei, hoping to see 7-a-side football leagues sprout across the Asia-Pacific.

"The reason I'm pushing for this is because we’ve asked the World Cup of 7-a-side football to host in October 2019," said Del Rosario.

"All of this is happening just so quickly, trying to push 7-a-side internationally, here in Asia... I wanna start spreading the word around Asia that hey, there's 7-a-side," he said.

He just returned to Manila from the United States this weekend following a meeting with the international 7-a-side association president Daniel Barcota.

"He flew out of Canada, I met him and secured the World Cup bid. That's 100 percent," Del Rosario said.

Among nations expected to participate in the global tournament are the US, Canada, Spain, Uruguay, Mexico, Argentina, Portugal and India, among others.

"And I wanna get more Asian countries involved," he said.

Del Rosario said the league is working on boosting its presence in the public space, tapping social media and looking to build partnerships for possible television broadcast.

Organizers have also been busy working to get sponsors, he said: "We'd like to get people on board as early as October."

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