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Indonesians seek Rp 2.5 billion for football wunderkind
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Tristan Alif Naufal, an ‘Indonesian Lionel Messi’, shows his medal from a teenage football competition
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T
ristan Alif Naufal, an 11-year-old football talent, needs Rp 2.5 billion (US$192,000) to join the Getafe Football Academy in Madrid, Spain. The deadline to join the academy is June 2016.
Currently, the Culture and Education Ministry and Pertamina have put up Rp 500 million.
On kitabisa.com, a crowd-funding website, Rp 19 million has been collected from 77 donors, or just one percent of the total amount. The deadline is 54 days away.
The large sum of money is needed due to a FIFA regulation that states that players of Alif’s age cannot go abroad by themselves.
"The family needs to move with him because he is underage. He needs shelter and our support," Professor Rhenald Kasali, an advisor with kitabisa.com, said on Sunday.
Trained at the Liverpool FC Academy in Jakarta, at seven years of age in 2012, Alif was featured in a Liverpool FC YouTube video.
His stardom continued to expand after he participated in the 2014 Ajax Academy Summer Camp, where he was deemed to be the most valuable player.
However, as his parents did not have a living permit for the Netherlands, he could not continue into Ajax Amsterdam’s U-12 squad. Then, at the beginning of 2016, he received the opportunity to join the Getafe Football Academy.
"If we can help, Indonesia’s name will rise again in Europe. We are currently crowd-funding through kitabisa.com so he can go to Madrid as soon as possible," Rhenald said. (dan)
