PSV Eindhoven Tour Thai Jail and Play Friendly Match Against Inmates

Kevin Strootman led the PSV players around the Thai prison

 

BANGKOK – PSV Eindhoven spent their Friday visiting Bangkok’s infamous Klong Prem Central Prison, Thailand’s largest correctional facility (‘home’ to 20,000 inmates – most of whom are serving life sentences), for a tour of the premises after being invited over for tea by the Thai authorities.

The prison is notable for staging their own World Cup tournament – the ‘World Cup Behind Bars’ as they call it – which they’ve done during the last three World Cups proper, in which teams made up of convicts from the same country participate against each other on the pitch inside the prison grounds.

During the visit, Klong Prem’s football team challenged PSV to a match, with the Dutch side cobbling together a couple of makeshift teams made up of first-teamers, Dick Advocaat, several coaches and a smattering of other club officials to take on the prison’s 14-man squad in two short games – with PSV taking the first game 1-0 before drawing the second 1-1.