The Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) football club will help train the Laos Under-23 soccer team in the leadup to the Southeast Asian Games in 2009 in Laos.
The Vietnamese club Saturday agreed to support the young Laos team at the suggestion of visiting Laotian Deputy Prime Minister Somvasat Lengsavad.
“We know HAGL is a big football club in Vietnam, with the expertise and facilities to help develop our football team,” Lengsavad said.
“Based on the Vietnamese government’s agreement to help train Laotian athletes to pave the way for SEA Games 2009, we came here with a desire to send the Lao U23 football team to practice in Pleiku (Gia Lai Province) for a long period of time.”
HAGL agreed to provide accommodation, training facilities and allowances to the Laotian football team, club Chairman Doan Nguyen Duc said.
Duc said HAGL hoped it could improve the skills and abilities of the Laos players to boost their chances in the football competition of the 25th SEA Games.
Another reason that the club agreed to help the Laotian football team, according to Duc, was because the HAGL Group was investing more than US$100 million in rubber plantations and others sectors in Laos.
Duc said he wanted to help Laos by training young footballers, as well as recruiting players in the future for the HAGL-Arsenal-JMG Football Institute, a joint venture between the club and UK team Arsenal.
“Thanks to (Vietnamese) Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh’s agreeing to help train 200 (Laotian) athletes in 2007 and 2008, and HAGL’s wholehearted support, we believe that Laos will have the most successful-ever SEA Games,” said Laotian Sports and Gymnastics Minister Phuthong Seng A Khom, who was accompanying the Laos Prime Minister.
The Laos Football Federation will try to complete procedures quickly so the Laos U23 team can start training in Gia Lai early next month, A Khom said.
