The Youth Football League (YFL) is “an offspring of the former United Football Youth League (UFL-Youth) created by the Football Alliance.” The twenty weekend league consists of seven age categories starting with U7s, U9s, U11s, U13s, U15s, U17s all the way to the U19s. The founding members of the YFL are the former clubs of the UFL as well as the current clubs in the Philippine Football League (PFL) with the vision of promoting grassroots football through a consistent youth league for all age groups.
The first season which started on April 23, 2017 was recently concluded on July 2 with almost all games played at the Ayala Alabang Country Club (ACC). The earliest kick off at 8 am and the latest kick off usually around 1 pm. What is interesting though is that as young as 13 years old, the kids are already playing 11-a-side football with 35 minute halves.
Of the different age groups, below is a table of how the different academies fared with Kaya FC dominating all seven categories after the championship playoffs. The top four teams played for the Cup while the bottom four teams battled it out in the Plate playoff. The biggest group consisted of nine teams which were the U11s and the U15s groups.
It is striking to see how two clubs, Kaya FC and MSA Agila dominated the league however with Kaya FC leading (top 2) in all age categories except the U15s bracket. Perhaps their organization and program sets them apart. It will be interesting to see how these teams perform in Season 2 which is already scheduled to the start first week of November.
We are happy with a successful first ever YFL Season 1 and definitely looking forward to Season 2 in November.
Sources: YFL site (http://www.yfl.ph/about-yfl/)
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Written by: Kaman Lee A. Suleiman
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