3 Loyola FC teams bound for La Liga youth football festival

Loyola Football Club. –CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

The Loyola Football Club, one of the country’s leading youth football clubs, will be sending three teams of youngsters to the La Liga Youth Tournament in Penang, Malaysia on July 23-24.

Sponsored by Spain’s top professional league, the Asian football festival features 88 teams from Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, the Philippines and host Malaysia.

Loyola FC will be fielding two boys’ teams in the Under-10 age group and one in the U-14 category. Led by Roxy Dorlas, director of the Loyola FC Academy, the teams leave for the Malaysian island on July 21.

The two-day football festival, organized by Sambill Park (M) Sdn. Bhd., features seven categories for boys (from Under-8 to Under-16) and two age groups for girls (Under-12 and Under-14) in an event that will provide “healthy and fun competition” for participants in Penang’s KOPA Arena.

Loyola FC was founded in 1996 as the Loyola Agila Football Club, a competitive team of alumni from Ateneo de Manila and other Jesuit schools. Under the sponsorship of the MVP Sports Foundation, the club changed its name to Loyola Meralco Sparks FC and later to FC Meralco Manila before it reverted to Loyola FC in 2018.

Currently, the club operates the Youth Academy and participates in a number of provincial, national and international tournaments.