Beach football gets big boost

MANILA, Philippines - With regular football enjoying renewed popularity and support in the Philippines, officials are looking to strengthen the country’s beach football program as well in a bid to become a “factor” in the discipline in Asian scene.

For starters, the Beach Football Association of the Philippines (BFAP) will hold its National Finals on Jan. 14 in Boracay in partnership with the Philippine Football Federation and the Philippine Sports Commission, preparatory to assembling a national pool tasked to do battle internationally. 

Among the targeted tourneys for the Phl beach football team dubbed “Dolphins,” who are ranked 35th in the world, are the Asian Beach Games in China in June and the Beach Football World Cup qualifying tournament later this year.

“With help of PSC and BFAP president Mike Athab, we want to be a factor in beach football in Asia,” said PFF president Nonong Araneta during yesterday’s PSA Forum at Shakey’s UN Avenue. 

“We have a lot of beaches to practice on and if we really concentrate on encouraging more players, creating more tournaments and venues to show talent in beach football, then probably given time, we’ll be a factor,” Araneta added.

Beach football sites are already in place in Subic, Clark and Davao and soon, the national team will have a permanent training venue that the PSC is expecting to put up soon at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.

At present, some of the Azkals are moonlighting in beach football, like Chieffy Caligdong and Ian Araneta of Air Force, but in the long run, Araneta and Athab said there will be separate pools for beach football, 11-a-side, and futsal.