Camille Naredo

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football

ABS-CBN News

MANILA &mdash; More than 10,000 players are expected to compete in the Philippine Football Federation&#39;s national grassroots competition.The PFF&#39;s 39 Regional Football Associations (RFAs) will battle for supremacy in the RFA Youth League, with players seeing action in under-11 and under-13 age groups in 8v8 football and futsal. Competitions will run until November.A total of 618 teams from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao have begun the inaugural nationwide competition, with more teams playing this September.Luzon accounts for 225 teams, with 98 entries in the U11 category and 127 in U13. The Visayas has 125 teams, composed of 58 U11 and 67 U13 sides, while Mindanao leads the country with 268 participating teams&mdash;130 in U11 and 138 in U13.PFF President John Anthony Gutierrez said the revival of youth competitions is central to building a stronger and more sustainable football pathway in the Philippines.&quot;The RFA Youth League is about bringing youth competitions back to the communities and making sure that young players in every region have a real, structured chance to play and to be seen,&quot; said Gutierrez.&quot;We are giving our regional associations the tools and the support to run consistent competitions, and in turn, we expect a clearer picture of the talent coming up across the country,&quot; added Gutierrez.RFA YL also strengthens the role of the RFAs as the foundation of the country&rsquo;s football development system.The program falls under the FIFA Talent Development Scheme (TDS) and is designed to give young players more regular playing opportunities while establishing a structured pathway for talent identification across the country.&quot;TDS gives us a framework to make sure talent identification isn&#39;t left to chance,&quot; Gutierrez said. &quot;Through the RFA Youth League, every region now has a consistent competition to draw from, so we&#39;re not just hoping to find players, we&#39;re building a system that finds them.&quot;Gutierrez said the league&#39;s design, particularly its reporting and monitoring requirements, is meant to build long-term systems rather than one-off events.&quot;We are building habits of documentation, player monitoring, and coordination between the RFAs and the national federation, so that whoever is identified through this league has a defined pathway forward, whether that&#39;s the Center of Development or the youth national team pool,&quot; he said.

More than 10,000 players are expected to compete in the Philippine Football Federation's national grassroots competition.

More than 10,000 players are expected to compete in the Philippine Football Federation's national grassroots competition.

PFF kicks off RFA Youth League; over 10k players to compete

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PFF kicks off RFA Youth League; over 10k players to compete

ABS-CBN News

Published September 06, 2026 05:18 PM PHT

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