That sort of chipout and flaking is pretty common on those hardwood plywoods.
I have a load of that stuff that I’ve used for cheap prototyping before moving over to a baltic birch ply or real wood and the finish is completely inconsistent. I regularly hit voids in the ply which result in delamination and big chunks coming out, like on the left of that football.
If you really want to cut features in this wood, when you hear a void (nasty rattly buzzing generally), pause the machine and fill the void with superglue, then hit it with an accellerant to solidify the weak area, that will let you carry on.
I’d move over to a nice baltic birch ply if you want to use ply, it will save you a lot of time fighting the materials.