LookAtVietnam – T&T Group are planning to build a football academy in Da Nang City in co-operation with the Portuguese football club Porto next year.

Lisbon treaty: T&T Ha Noi football team chairman Do Quang Hien and a representative of Portuguese club Porto hold a press conference in Ha Noi. The two groups plan to build a football academy in Da Nang next year.

T&T Group is the owner of the Vietnamese premier league team, T&T Ha Noi, who finished third in the football championships.

The football academy, which will be built on 35ha area in Lien Chieu district of Da Nang, will train junior teams for T&T Ha Noi and SHB Da Nang.

As scheduled, the academy will include four football pitches and a 10,000-seat stadium, which will be finished in three years.

In a press conference on Monday, the two sides agreed to a sport and trade co-operation, in which players of T&T Ha Noi and Da Nang will be sent to train in Portugal.

Porto will also provide players for two Vietnamese teams in loan or transfer deals.

“The deal will make a way for us to get closer to the world, as well as help set up a completely professional regime of football teams in the future,” said T&T Ha Noi chairman Do Quang Hien. “We will try our best to get co-operation deals with Porto soon,”

If the academy is built, T&T Ha Noi will be the second biggest football centre in Viet Nam.

Last year, English Premiere club Arsenal and Hoang Anh Gia Lai set up a football academy, Hoang Anh Gia Lai-Arsenal JMG, in a US$4 million project.

T&T Group has been attempting to ink a deal with Portuguese Henrique Calisto, who coaches the national team and U-23 team, in order to have him as the technical director for T&T Ha Noi.

Last month, top striker Le Cong Vinh of T&T Ha Noi was the first Vietnamese player to join Portugal’s Leixoes for a four-month contract. Calisto had provided his assistance with finalising the deal.

However, Calisto said he has only had talks with T&T Ha Noi, but has not signed a contract because his job with the Viet Nam Football Federation (VFF) will expire on March 31 next year.

“It’s just a talk with T&T Ha Noi chairman. I have not signed anything yet. I have to continue working with VFF until next March,” Calisto told reporters after a training session with the U-23 team in Ha Noi on Monday.

Calisto was the first foreign coach to help the national team win the ASEAN Football Championship.

The U-23 and senior teams will set their sights on new targets when they prepare for the Southeast Asian Games in Laos this December and the Asian Cup Qualifiers.

Viet Nam has not won a gold medal at the SEA Games for football since the debut of the regional games in Thailand in 1959.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News