The Philippine Football Federation (PFF) will launch its first ever online eFootball competition, the PFF eTrophy, this coming 15-16 April 2021.
The competition will be an invitational event in its inaugural staging for 2021 with the PFF looking to expand next year to accommodate more players.
For this year’s event, standouts from the Philippines Virtual Football Community and FIFA 21 Philippines groups have been invited together with former Filipino international Jortel Aristorenas to complete the eight-player cast.
The tournament is strictly an online event as the PFF continues to follow health and safety protocols set by the government.
Here are the participants:
- Miguelito Aquino – Philippines Virtual Football Community/FIFA 21 Philippines
- Christian Sulapas – Philippines Virtual Football Community/FIFA 21 Philippines
- Carl Sambrano – Philippines Virtual Football Community / President of Skateboarding and Roller Sports Association of the Philippines
- Jose Benitez – Philippines Virtual Football Community
- Robby Sison – Philippines Virtual Football Community
- Jorrel Aristorenas – Former Philippine Men’s National Team player
- Rone Camarines – Philippines Virtual Football Community
- Ciccio San Gabriel – Philippines Virtual Football Community
“We have invited these players based on their record in FIFA 21 on the Sony PlayStation 4 (online rankings),” said PFF eTrophy Commissioner Mikhail de Guzman. “We have made this an invitational event for now as it is our first competition and we are also learning how to run the event, but we are looking to expand the number of participants in the coming years. This project will be part of the PFF’s plans going forward.”
Over the past few years, there has been a great interest in eSports, particularly in eFootball. With various FIFA Member Associations and other eFootball stakeholders already venturing in online competitions, PFF saw this year as an opportune time to launch the PFF eTrophy as its very first eFootball competition here in the country.
The competition will feature a group stage and a knockout stage. Eight players will be drawn into two groups of four where they will play each other once in a single round-robin format. Matches will be played using the game FIFA 21 on the Sony PlayStation 4.
The top two players from each group will face-off in the cross-over knockout stage where the matches will be played over two-legs. The winners from the semi-final matches will battle for the championship. The champion and runner-up will go on to represent the country in the FIFAe Nations Series 2021 later this month.
PFF officials hope that this online competition may help further spur the growth of football and influence the public to take an interest in the sport through a different medium.
“We thank FIFA for including eFootball in its platform which will allow us not only to host eSports competitions, but also to send our players to international competitions,” said PFF president Mariano Araneta, Jr. “As we host our first ever PFF eTrophy, we hope that it will encourage football fans and stakeholders to enjoy football not just on the physical pitch, but also on the digital pitch.”
“We see eFootball as one of the new and innovative ways to promote football to the general public, particularly to the youth,” said PFF general secretary Atty. Edwin Gastanes. “We invite all aspiring eFootball players to join and compete in the PFF eTrophy.”
