THỪA THIÊN-HUẾ — Football for All in Việt Nam (FFAV) is sending four young amateur footballers to Russia to participate in FIFA’s Football for Hope Festival 2018.

The festival, which takes place from June 25 to July 5 in Moscow, is an official FIFA event that will be held on the sidelines of the ongoing World Cup. The Vietnamese team of four will take part in the event along with 47 teams from other countries.

The team is composed of two girls and two boys from the Xuân Phú Patronage and Vocational Centre, a local orphanage in central province of Thừa Thiên- Huế.

Hà Danh Dự, a member of the Vietnamese team, said participating in the festival is a great chance for him to show off his football skills and learn from other participants. It is a dream come true for a disadvantaged child like him, Dự said.

Dự and teammates Đoàn Thị Hường, Lê Thị Ngọc Ánh, and Trương Đình Hoàng were housed at the orphanage after their parents passed away due to diseases or accidents, and their families could not manage to feed them anymore.

The four members of the Vietnamese team and other children in the orphanage had regular football practice sessions last year thanks to a playground built by the FFAV in the facility. The FFAV said the four were chosen not based on their excellence in football, but on their attendance in regular practice sessions.

The FFAV, a project run by the Football Association of Norway, began its operations in Việt Nam in 2003. It is headquartered in Thừa Thiên- Huế and works mainly to promote community football, focusing on rural children. — VNS