The Philippines’ top football league for women gets an unlikely assist from the volleyball world.
The 2025 PFF Women’s League was announced on Friday, March 14, at Studio 300 Makati. The league kicks off on March 22 at the new Mall Of Asia pitch, and they intend to finish before July when the Philippines plans on hosting an international tournament with the national team.
Six teams will contest this edition of the pinnacle of women’s 11-a-side football in the country. Kaya FC, and Stallion Laguna, who won the PFF Women’s Cup last year, represent the old guard. Makati Football Club, which traditionally concentrates on youth development, is fielding a women’s senior side composed of their academy products as well as reinforcements from the provinces.
A pair of UAAP teams, UP and UST, will also join the fray, as well as Capital1 Solar Strikers. This appears to be a new club built on the ashes of Manila Digger FC’s women’s club, which I am told suddenly vaporized after placing third in last year’s cup. Let Dimzon, former national team mentor, remains as the coach. It reminds me of how the old Ceres FC morphed into UCFC in the PFL, I suppose.
The Solar Strikers are a sister team of the Capital1 Solar Spikers of the PVL and are run by Mandy and Milka Romero.
The format will be a pure league, with two round-robins for a total of ten matches for each side. No playoffs this time, unlike with the Cup. The games are going to be on Saturdays. If I recall correctly, five foreigners will be allowed. Tournament commissioner Mico Gutierrez revealed that there will be another cup competition later in the year to keep the players playing and the national team starters sharp for international duty.
It is notable that two teams who joined the cup last year, Tuloy FC and Azzuri, are not participating this time around. That’s a shame because an eight-team league with fourteen matches in one season would have been awesome.
Gutierrez, president of the National Capital Region Football Association and brother of PFF president John Gutierrez, is the tournament commissioner, but he has offloaded the day-to-day organizational duties to Grid Sports Athletic, an entity associated with volleyball. Here is where things get interesting.
President of Grid Sports Athletic, Bea Tan, was at the press con and unveiled some solid plans to grow the league.
“The vision is to create another women’s sport that is ‘up there,’” explains Tan.
“Women’s volleyball is very popular, we want to build towards creating something like that for women’s football. It’s very doable, especially considering the women are very interesting and very talented,” added the former Ateneo volleyball player.
“We want to build a live stream at the very least. A stream that is TV-worthy. I think volleyball is where it is now because of the media covering it consistently. That’s where we want to come in in terms of building women’s football,” explains Tan.
“I don’t want to promise anything, we want to build it one match at a time, but definitely we will have a social media team and highlights. We would love to have a team that would really cover (the league) so we can feed something to the fans. And not just highlights of the games, we want to create mini-stories about the girls, like why they are here, why they keep playing, the teams, and all of that.”
Grid is deeply involved with the PVL, specifically their out-of-town sorties, and the Beach Volleyball Republic series. The company should know quite a bit about spreading the gospel of women’s sports. Grid even has a TikTok with 73,800 followers. Sending out women’s football content on that platform to that many folks might make a difference. Yes, a livestream is important, but is only one piece of the puzzle.
Football in the Philippines, especially at the league level, has been crying out for this sort of exposure. Short-form content that is easy for fans to digest and share, videos that help build up Filipina sporting stars that can be idolized by the masses.
Yes, the national team is a big deal as the centerpiece of women’s football, but they only play a handful of games a year. The league competitions, with week-in and week-out play, is where stars, and the teams they play for, can truly build a connection with fans. And when the fan base grows, the sponsors come on board, the money flows in, and the whole idea of women’s football in the Philippines becomes sustainable.
Hali Long from Kaya as well as the McDaniel sisters of Stallion, Chandler, and Olivia, were at the event. Could they one day be as famous as Alyssa Valdez, Eya Laure, or Jia De Guzman? Of course,e that is a stretch, but this could be a start.
The venue for the PFF Women’s League is also a big help. Last year I remember seeing the women’s league play at Rizal Memorial in front of a modest crowd. Having matches in MOA, an elevator ride away from shops, restaurants, and other amenities, could help draw in spectators.
We already have amazingly talented Filipina footballers, each with their own fascinating stories to tell. Now we have a league in a new and accessible pitch, with the backing of a motivated promotional company. It seems that everything just might be coming into place for this league to enjoy the success it deserves.
Banner image from Philippine Women’s National Football Team on Facebook, PFF on Facebook.