Due to the intense heat during the summer months, the University Athletic Association of the Philippines has decided to move its collegiate men’s and women’s football tournaments to the first semester for Season 87, with matches scheduled to begin this September.
When football returned to the UAAP after the pandemic, the past two seasons offered exciting action, but players noticeably struggled with the hotter temperatures.
In response, the league has taken a proactive approach to address this challenge.
“It’s really because of the extreme heat pagdating ng April and May,” said UAAP Board of Managing Director Representative Mark Molina of tournament-host Far Eastern University.
“In fact, if you’ve noticed during the last couple of years, in the second round, we don’t play 2 p.m. games anymore because of that. But even 4 p.m. games, kawawa yung athletes eh. This was actually planned last year already but because of eligibility purposes, it’s hard to just shift the calendar. So we gave all of the schools the chance to prepare for the shift. Now, it’s finally happened,” he said.
The men’s tournament will kick off on Thursday, September 12 while the women’s tournament will follow a week later.
On the other hand, the high school boys’ tournament will still be played in the second semester.
The UP Diliman Football Stadium in Quezon City will continue to host all the matches, while the Rizal Memorial Stadium in Manila is the target venue for the men’s Final Four and the finals of both divisions.
Men’s matches will be played on Thursdays and Sundays. They will feature defending champion University of the Philippines, FEU, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, Adamson University, University of the East, and University of Santo Tomas.
On the other hand, women’s matches will be played on Saturdays and will showcase defending champion FEU, finalist La Salle, UST, UP, and Ateneo.
With the men’s and women’s matches now taking place in the first semester, the challenge will be the presence of strong rains, which may force the cancellation of these matches.
Nevertheless, Molina assured that the UAAP has contingencies in place for such occurrences.
“If there will be games that will be called off or postponed, I’m sure may instances niyan, we’re prepared to play more weekday games siguro but we will finish before Christmas for sure this December,” he said.
“The good thing now is that the UP pitch is turf already. That’s not a big problem unless may lightning then we’ll need to cancel. We still feel na better to play now during the rainy season than during the summer.”
