Huynh Due cancels deal with Persija
Huynh Due cancels deal with Persija
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The contract between Jakarta-based soccer club Persija and Vietnamese star Le Huynh Duc has come to nothing as he has been denied a permit to leave the country, the club announced here on Wednesday.
"We made a one-year contract with Le during the Tiger Cup. Renumeration was already agreed, but he told us that he could not proceed because the Vietnamese Police Headquarters would not release him from duty," Persija manager Aang Hamid Suganda told The Jakarta Post here on Wednesday.
The 31-year-old striker is an active police officer with the rank of major, currently playing with Ho Chi Minh City-based Asian Bank.
He scored six goals and led Vietnam to third place in the recently concluded Tiger Cup, a biennial soccer competition among the Southeast Asian nations, in Jakarta.
The Vietnamese team captain was to have been paired in the Indonesian league matches, which will kick off on Sunday, with striker Bambang Pamungkas, who came out as top scorer at the Tiger Cup with eight goals.
"It's deplorable that he has been unable to join us here, because it already looked certain that he would be playing here when we made the deal," Aang said.
The failure to recruit Le has prompted Persija to turn to Emanuel Ayub, a 20-year-old striker from Cameroon.
"He was a former Cameroon junior team member and has proven to be a prolific striker," Aang said, adding that the player had already joined the team for a training session.
Ayub was top scorer in the 2002 Vietnamese league with 20 goals, but Aang failed to mention which club Ayub played for.
The recruitment of Ayub, who will be paired with Bambang, Andi Supendi and Nova Zainal in the striking line, makes a foursome of the foreign recruits to Persija, the other three being Mbeng Jean (Cameroon), Antonio Claudio (Brazil) and Sasho Dimitrov (Bulgaria).
This has reached the limit set by the Soccer Association of Indonesian (PSSI), which allows only four foreign players for each club.
Coached by Bulgarian Atanas Georgiev, Persija, which won the 2001 league, will kick off its campaign with a derby match against Persijatim of East Jakarta at Lebak Bulus Stadium in South Jakarta on Sunday.