Charity, home and away

In a spirit of giving, Phnom Penh Crown this week donated the monies from the sale of 30 football kits to the Kantha Bopha Children's Hospital, via a charity football match between fans of Real Madrid and Man United, and will on Saturday, donate all the match entry ticket monies, from their Academy game with Lao Toyota, to the local Happy Tree Orphanage, with 30 children joining the fun. Crown already has a thriving community engagement program involving schools and organisations as well as a series of good cause initiatives that they are very active in, from child malnutrition to HIV prevention campaigns. This is a football club that gives, and keeps giving. On top of that, the club is offering a series of prizes, thirty in all, to fans who buy tickets for their five Asia Champions Trophy matches. Entry is just 2,000 riel and there are chances to win playing kits, training kits, get to train with the Crown squad and other prizes. 

As predicted, maybe I should do this for a living, the two Metfone C-League teams came a cropper in their Singapore Cup matches this week. Both Svay Rieng and NagaCorp travelled to Singapore to meet two of the island's top teams and will return after taking a proper beating. Svay Rieng found it hard going against Albirex Niigata and the Japanese team won at a canter, 3-0. This evening, NagaCorp, who tried their luck by applying late to the competition organisers and got the nod, will probably regret bothering, taking a 5-0 thrashing by Home United firmly on the chin. Both teams have missed the domestic competition for two weekends and will now play catch-up on their MCL fixtures, with midweek games lined up for the next two weeks.