It was established as the country's domestic cup and is named after Paulino Alcántara, a Filipino-Spanish footballer who notably played in the 1910s–20s for FC Barcelona as well as the Philippines and Spain national teams.
To help address this issue, Smart Communications in January 2011, approached the PFF with an offer to finance a new local football competition.
The proposed partnership was set to last 10 years, with Smart releasing ₱80 million in funds with the aim of providing more playing opportunities for skilled football players, and the eventual creation of a national league.
After the PFF announced the creation of a new national league, the federation confirmed that a new domestic cup competition was also to be formed.
[1] It was planned that the cup will be held simultaneously with the Philippines Football League (PFL) regular season.
[5] On July 15, 2018 during the PFL Fans Day, it was announced that non-franchise clubs were eligible to join the Copa Paulino Alcantara, provided they satisfy the licensing requirements.
Kaya–Iloilo defeated Global Cebu 4–0, wherein Robert Lopez Mendy scored the tournament's first-ever goal and hat-trick.
[8] In the final on October 27, Kaya–Iloilo defeated Davao Aguilas 1–0 in extra time through a last-minute goal by Jovin Bedic.
[9] In 2019, when the Philippine Premier League was launched to supplant the PFL, it was announced that the Copa Paulino Alcantara would be retained.
[11] The 2019 Copa Paulino Alcantara featured the first guest team, Philippines U22, who were preparing for the upcoming 2019 Southeast Asian Games.
[18] The Copa Paulino Alcantara logo was chosen from a design competition organized by Liga Futbol Inc. in May 2018.
The 2022 edition is the only one to date that did not distribute teams into groups; instead they all played each other in a single round-robin format with the top four advancing to the semi-finals.
From its launch in 2018 until 2020, the winners of the Copa Paulino Alcantara qualified for the following season's AFC Cup group stage.