Aguilas hope to inspire football resurgence in mindanao

TAGUM CITY—Mindanao finally has a football club it can call its own.

Composed of standouts from provinces in the island, the Davao Aguilas Football Club bound to see action in the maiden season of the Philippines Football League was unveiled on Sunday in a festive atmosphere at Davao Del Norte Sports Complex here.

Local officials as well as players who saw action in the football festival organized by the club a day earlier showed up in full force to welcome the Aguilas, who will be coached by veteran tactician Gary Phillips.

Davao Aguilas chair Jefferson Cheng said the club took a conscious approach in recruiting players from Mindanao in the hopes of inspiring younger players in the island to aim higher in the sport.

“We thought about how we can grow the sport in Mindanao and we saw the club as an opportunity to do that,” said Cheng, who also manages the National Under-22 squad.

“Realistically, we are a very new club but we will try to get the best players from Mindanao. The goal is to be competitive.”

Cheng, who is also one of the owners of Australian club Western Sydney Wanderers, said the Aguilas can draw inspiration from the Aussie club, which won the A-League in its first season and bagged the AFC Champions League title the following year.

“There is a parallelism with how we started at Western Sydney and we hope it happens here,” said Cheng.