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AIA Indonesia’s football teams win runner-up at AIA Championship 2023 in London
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ollowing a two-year absence as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the AIA Championship 2023, a prestigious football match among AIA markets, was back with two AIA Indonesia teams, BahagiaAIA Men and Women finishing as runners-up.
The football competition, participated in by teams from AIA markets, including from Hong Kong, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, was held at Tottenham Hotspur Training Ground in London on Monday.
The AIA Championship is an annual football competition that opens an opportunity for talents to try their skill and ability on the international stage.
The participation of BahagiaAIA teams in the AIA Championship 2023 partly aims to encourage people to live healthier, better, longer lives through sports, particularly football.
AIA Chief Marketing Officer Kathryn Parapak said, “I am proud of the two teams from Indonesia for their success of becoming the runners-up in the AIA Championship 2023 in London.”
The two teams’ journey in the competition, involving employees, sales forces, partners and media representatives, was expected to inspire more people to be more active in sports, she said.
Incredible performance
Throughout the AIA Championship 2023, the Bahagia AIA teams showed its incredible performance as it managed to dominate the group phase without losses when playing teams from South Korea and Singapore, leading to the two BahagiaAIA teams becoming group champion and, at the same time, garnering a ticket to advance to the semifinal. At the semifinal, BahagiaAIA played well by defeating a Vietnamese team to join the final.
The two BahagiaAIA teams won runners-up at the final match after they lost to Thailand’s team in a dramatic match decided by penalties.
Prior to flying to London, the two teams, comprised of seven male and seven female players took part in intensive training for two days at Dewa United field, located in South Tangerang. Apart from the physical training and match simulation, the two teams also received coaching related to motivation and team building in order to enhance their sense of collaboration as a team.
Upon arrival in London, the BahagiaAIA teams, along with other teams, had an opportunity to visit Tottenham Hotspur’s headquarters and watched English Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Brentford play on Sunday.
Kathryn said the AIA football teams’ visit to Tottenham Hotspur could be a highly valuable experience for football talent from Indonesia, in line with AIA Indonesia’s commitment to motivate people to participate in sports so as to live an active and healthy life under the “AIA Sepakbola Untuk Negeri” (AIA Football for the Nation) Program.
“Tottenham Hotspur has been AIA Group’s Global Principal Partner for a decade, and the visit was part of the partnership program. With the same vision, AIA and Spurs collaborate to carry on facilitating and, at the same time, developing football talents in various countries,” she noted.
She went on to say that in Indonesia, through AIA Sepak Bola Untuk Negeri, “we assist in facilitating and developing thousands of young talents to be active and made achievements through football”.
The partnership has successfully brought hundreds of young football talents into international-standard football training sessions at AIA Elite Football Training Camp in Phuket, Thailand. On top of that, the partnership has facilitated and developed more than 2,000 young talents in Indonesia by involving coaches from the International Development Coach of Tottenham Hotspur.
