AUGUST will be a busy month for Philippine touch football with a local tournament set at the Mall of Asia Sands by the Bay court and an international event lined up in Pattaya in Thailand.
The Beach Touch at the Sands kicks off on Sunday at Sands by the Bay, according to Federation of Touch Football Pilipinas (FTFP) development officer Aleth Feliciano.
“It’s our first event at the Sands [MOA] and we expect over a hundred participants,” Feliciano told Tuesday’s Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Forum at Shakey’s Malate.
Also appearing in the forum, presented by San Miguel Corp., Shakey’s, Accel and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., were Clair Barberis and Bianca Arco of FTFP.
On August 29 and 30, FTFP will send a young and vibrant team to the annual Asian Club Championship, a pure touch football event, in Pattaya.
The team, called the Philippine Cobras, will be composed mostly of developmental players that will go up against teams from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, China, Taiwan and Australia.
“We are sending less-experienced players as part of our commitment to improve our pool of players. But we still expect to win a few games. We hope to make it to the semifinals,” said Arco, pointing to Japan and Singapore as the teams to beat.
Arco said the Cobras will play seven to eight games of full regulation in Pattaya.
Beach touch, according to Barberis, is a “more social game than touch football,” but because of the playing surface, it gets “faster with a lot of diving and running.”
Twelve teams composed of locals and expats in Metro Manila will see action in Sunday’s event that follows two successful legs at Anvaya Cove in Morong, Bataan, and Playa Laiya Beach Resort in San Juan, Batangas.
Image credits: Roy Domingo