“Wala na ang women’s football sa SEA Games, hiwalay na tournament na lang ang gagawin,” said Araneta, who is back in the country after attending a meeting of the ASEAN Football Federation in Kuala Lumpur.

Araneta said the AFF will instead stage an ASEAN championship for women, which will be hosted by Myanmar in October.

He added that the national women’s team should instead focus on preparing and training for the Myanmar tournament.

Indonesian organizers have earlier said that they decided to scrap women’s football because they couldn’t find standard-sized football grounds.

Football games are supposed to be one of the sports disciplines which will be staged in Palembang, with the finals to be held in Jakarta.

But organizers said they need to have two Asian Football Confederation-standard grounds and a training field to be able to host women’s football.

Vietnam, the defending champion in women’s football, is among those affected by the decision.

Meanwhile, Philippine sports officials are set to to fly to Bali, Indonesia this week to attend the SEA Games Federation meeting on Feb. 25 where they are expected to lobby for some of the sports earlier scrapped, specifically billiards and snooker.

They will also ask organizers to reinstate some events in shooting, cycling and sailing, which the organizers had reduced.

Despite the reduction of events and scrapping of some sports, the Indonesian SEA Games remains as the biggest regional sports spectacle so far with 43 sports and 542 events in its calendar.

Peter Atencio, Manila Standard Today