Fighters practise at Judo Open

The HCM City Judo Open Tournament will be organised by mid-July at the city’s Phan Dinh Phung Gymnasium.

The competition has attracted participants from more than 10 countries while the host will be represented by three teams.

As none of the national team members won a ticket to compete at the Beijing Olympics, the tournament will be provide a good chance to Vietnamese fighters to practise ahead of the SEA Games in Laos next year.

They will face strong rivals from Hong Kong, Japan, Chinese Taipei and South Korea.

Prior to this event, a two-day Southeast Asian Judo Championship will kick off today at the city’s Lanh Binh Thang Gymnasium.

There are seven delegations including the host Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines participating.

T&T to replace Agribank

T&T will become the lead investor in an annual international championship previously sponsored by Agribank, the T&T company announced on Tuesday.

T&T stressed that it was not a sponsor of the Viet Nam Football Federation (VFF), but an investor, and that they were willing to give the VFF as much money or more than Agribank, whose annual investment in the championship was about US$300,000.

Do Quang Hien, T&T president, said his company would absorb 100 per cent of losses, but that if the VFF gained profit, they were entitled to receive 50 per cent.

Thanks to T&T’s investment, the VFF was able to invite Thailand team to participate in the tournament.

Man. United may play in Vietnam

Manchester United, titleholders in the English Premier League, may take part in friendly matches at My Dinh Stadium before September 2009, following Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s invitation to United’s main sponsor, AIG.

According to an estimate by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Vietnam’s Investment and Development Bank, the cost of staging the United match would approach $2 million.

Marketing firm VFD’s Tran Duc An said they could only organise two matches at most because even revenues from ticket sales and advertising would not be able to cover the expense of hosting the British club, even if tickets were sold at $50 or $1,000.

Cambodia miss badmin qualifiers

Cambodian players didn’t participate in five qualifying matches of Viet Nam Challenge’s robot badminton tournament, kicked off in HCM City in Tuesday morning, because they did not arrive at the tournament in time.

The opening of the main round was yesterday. Matches from second round to quaterfinal will be live broadcast on HTV2, VTV3 and VCTV3.

(Source: Viet Nam News)