Philippine Football Federation President Nonong Araneta is once again seeking assistance from the Philippine Sports Commission to support one of the country’s national teams: the Philippine Women’s National Under-17 Football Team.
This team is preparing to compete in the 2024 AFC U-17 Women’s Asian Cup, which will be hosted by Indonesia.
Araneta made this statement during the handover ceremony yesterday, held between the PFF and the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines. As a former national team player, he is requesting aid from the government agency because the Filipinas U-17 team requires all the help they can get to face the top teams of the continent next year.
“We hope to knock on the doors of PSC again for some financial considerations for our under-17 (team) because this is the Asian Cup already,” he said.
“The PSC has been very cooperative naman as long as we show them our team really needs their support.”
The Filipinas U-17 team will be competing against formidable opponents, including Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, China, the Republic of Korea, and DPR Korea in the tournament. They secured their qualification for this event through four wins in two qualification rounds.
In the first round, former coach Alen Stajcic guided the country to 3-1 and 2-0 victories over Guam and Lebanon, respectively, last April. Coach Sinisa Cohadzic then led the Filipinas U-17 in the second round, where they faced a 2-6 loss to Australia but achieved 3-1 and 1-0 victories over Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Araneta aspires for the Filipinas U-17 team to approach next year’s Asian Cup with a winning mentality similar to what their senior team counterparts exhibited in the FIFA Women’s World Cup a few months ago, as well as in the ongoing 19th Asian Games.
“We want to compete. We don’t just want to show our faces there as what we said before when we went to the World Cup in New Zealand. We have to compete. We have to have the mind that we can win games,” the amiable executive said.
“So, I hope that our players have that frame of mind that they’re there to win some games.”
