Former Philippine Azkals booter Anton del Rosario is forming a team that will join Philippine Football League.
Del Rosario, who retired from the national team back in 2014, said the team will be known as the Maharlika FC.
The 47-year-old del Rosario said he is now in the process of applying for a license with the Philippine Football Federation (PFF).
“The team will be a mixture of youth and experience, and we will have four foreign players that will be allowed to play,” said del Rosario during a weekly online session of TOPS: Usapang Sports on Zoom.
The team will be ready by the time training sessions are finally allowed.
So far, the PFF has decided to postpone the start of the training sessions of club teams that will see action in the coming PFL.
The sessions at the PFF National Training Center in Carmona, Cavite were supposed to be held on the third week of August 2020.
But it was put off after the government’s decision to impose a Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) in the National Capital Region and the provinces of Cavite and Laguna from Aug. 4 to 18.
This was brought on by the increasing number of Covid-19 infections in Metro Manila.
Brazilian-Filipino model Daniel Matsunaga will be among the players of the team, according to del Rosario.
Initially, PFL teams were allowed to have training sessions in areas under the General Community Quarantine (GCQ) and Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ).
This was after the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases approved the guidelines that were set in both the PFF Operations Protocol for the Philippines Football League and the Joint Administrative Order signed by the Games and Amusements Board (GAB), Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), and the Department of Health (DOH).