Kudos to Aboitiz Group for helping Ph football

MindanaoToday.com | Kudos to Aboitiz Group for helping Ph football

By: Jack Biantan

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Name a multi-billion peso company in the country except for the MVP group, that spends millions on football development. Aboitiz Group is the answer. They have been supporting football development since in the 90’s.

I witnessed the birth of the Aboitiz Football Cup in 1997 in Cebu City when I was a young man working as a sports journalist for SunStar Cebu and at the same time volunteering as the General Secretary for the age group teams in the then Cebu Football Association (CFA).

There were no football festivals then. CFA (now CRFA) used to hold two 11-Aside tournaments twice annually from the 12-Under, 14-Under, 16-Under, 18-Under, and the Men’s Open categories. There were no girl’s or women’s tournaments.

Then CFA President, the late Mario Ugarte, was responsible for bringing in sponsors. Ugarte was the manager of Aboitiz Insurance and he was responsible for organizing tournaments like the M. Lhuillier Cup, BBS Cup,  Pheonix Assurance Cup, RCL Cup, and then later the Mayor’s Cup during the time of Koko Holganza and Tommy Osmena.

Besides these tournaments, there were also the Milo Cup, the Coke Go Goal, and the Department of Education Palaro elimination tournaments. So Cebu football was already a hotbed of tournaments even during the 80’s and the 90’s.

One day, I visited  Mario Ugarte at his Aboitiz office, and he told me that Phoenix had pulled out of its sponsorship and was negotiating with a company to sponsor a replacement tournament.

He then later told me that his company, Aboitiz was sponsoring the tournament and would be known as the Aboitiz Cup. Mario Ugarte’s nephew the late Jon Ramon Aboitiz approved the sponsorship.

Jon Ramon was the President of the Aboitiz Group then. It was the start of the Aboitiz family’s commitment to support the beautiful game in Cebu. From then on Jon Ramon was a regular speaker during the opening and the closing of the Aboitiz Cup until he died in 2018.

Jon Ramon was a good man and he had never forgotten me. I met him at the airport in the mid-2000s while I was on my vacation from England where I was based.

He was the first to recognize me, and I was embarrassed I did not recognize him. We had a long conversation about football before we parted ways to take our flights. That was the last time I saw him.

Jon Ramon passed away on Nov. 30, 2018, at age 70 but his football legacy, the Aboitiz Cup remains and is now on its 24th season and expanding.

Mario Ugarte retired as Cebu Football president in the early 2000s but remained active with the University of San Jose-Recoletos varsity team. He passed away on Nov. 15, 2019, aged 93. The Abotiz Cup continued until the COVID-19 pandemic suspended it the following year.

According to the Wikipedia page of the Aboitiz Football Cup, the 24th edition of the Aboitiz Cup this year is made possible through many partnerships aimed at promoting grassroots and sustainability. The tournament kicked off last Sept. 14 and was organized in collaboration with Aboitiz InfraCapital, Coca-Cola, AboitizPower’s Thermal Group, and AdventEnergy.

Under President Rodney Orale, the Cebue Regional Football Association (CRFA) is organizing the competition. The closing and awarding ceremonies are scheduled for February.

Unlike in the 90s when the Aboitiz Cup was just starting and the popularity of the beautiful game in the country was in its infancy, hundreds of teams from different categories are joining the tournament this year.

According to tournament commissioner Dave Intong, this year hundreds of teams are entered in this tournament from 14 different categories.

Teams compete in Players 6 mixed, 8 mixed, 10 mixed, Players 12 Boys, Players 14 Boys, Players 14 Girls, Players 16 Boys, Players 16 Girls, Player 18 Boys, Men’s Open Div. 1, Men’s Open Div. 2, Women’s Open, 38 Above Men’s, 48 Above Men’s.

Matches in the Players 12 and above are all 11-Aside, while Players 10 and below are 9-Aside with an offside rule.

The Philippine football community wishes that other companies would follow the Aboitiz commitment to help the development of the beautiful game in the country.

The Aboitiz Equity Ventures leads the Aboitiz Group in their multi-billion ventures. AEV is a public holding company with major investments in power, banking, financial services, food, infrastructure, land, shipbuilding and data science and artificial intelligence. (jackbiantantambok@gmail.com)

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