chelsea

Chelsea Football Club is delighted to announce our first ever visit to Indonesia, with our final 2013 Here to Play, Here to Stay tour match taking place in Jakarta.
We will face an Indonesia XI on Thursday, July 25 at the 88,000-capacity Gelora Bung Karno Stadium as we compete for the BNI Cup.
The match will follow on from games in Thailand and Malaysia, both familiar destinations in recent trips, and will allow local supporters the chance to see the full Chelsea squad in action for the first time as we celebrate our relationship with Bank Negara Indonesia, which has to date issued more than 60,000 Chelsea-branded payment cards in Indonesia. The game will be promoted by MyEvents.

Indonesia boasts one of our largest and most passionate fan-bases, and is home to around two million Chelsea Facebook fans. Jakarta represents more than 300,000 of those, the most of any city in the world.
Chelsea also has a dedicated website in Bahasa Indonesia, just one of several Asian local language sites, which between them are visited half a million times each month.
On announcing the game, Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay said:
'I am thrilled that Chelsea Football Club will finally be visiting Jakarta.'I know well the passion for football in Indonesia, and the support Chelsea has in the region, so cannot wait to visit for what will be an exciting conclusion to our 2013 tour.
'We can expect a fantastic match against a strong opposition, and it is my hope that we will be able to leave an important legacy in terms of the community work we conduct during the tour and for long afterwards.'
The club has plans to expand its community work in Indonesia this year with the planned opening of a Chelsea FC Soccer School, incorporating a Blue Pitch, providing a centre for local coaches to help further the development of grassroots football in the south-east Asia region.
In recent years we have rolled out further Blue Pitches as part of our Here to Play, Here to Stay philosophy in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Manila, Japan, Korea and Singapore.  
Gatot M Suwondo, chief executive of Bank Negara Indonesia, said: 'BNI is very excited in welcoming Chelsea FC to Indonesia as it shows the importance of this country and its fan base to this world-class football club.
'This visit is an immense appreciation especially for the Chelsea fans and BNI-Chelsea co-brand products owners, and the wider audience of football fans in general.'

The capital of Indonesia, Jakarta lies on the island of Java and is the most populous city in south-east Asia with almost 10 million inhabitants. In July, it is regularly hot and dry, with temperatures averaging around 30°C.
The Gelora Bung Karno Stadium was opened for the 1962 Asian Games, and also hosted the 2007 AFC Asian Cup Final between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Ticket information for the match on July 25, and the fixtures in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok will be released in due course.