Football legend Pele to visit Vietnam?
The legendary Brazilian footballer Pele could attend the third coffee festival on March 10-13 in Buon Ma Thuoc city in the central highland province of Dak Lak, according to a source.
The Trung Nguyen Coffee Group has invited Pele to attend the festival but the king of football has not responded so far.
Pele would not play football but is expected to deliver a speech on the inauguration ceremony of the festival as a coffee ambassador from Brazil - the country with the highest coffee yield in the world.
Since being held for the first time in 2005, the national-level festival has been organized once every two years.
This year’s festival will be bigger in scale with outdoor stages and spaces for art activities in different locations.
During the event, there will be programs including an international coffee seminar, a music show themed “Legendary Coffee” and the inauguration of the first World Coffee Museum in Vietnam.
Lu Ngoc Cu, Chairman of Dak Lak People’s Committee said the festival is an important event for cultural exchange and commercial links with foreign countries while helping emphasize the unique trait of the province’s festival.
Currently, Vietnam, which makes more than 1 million tons of coffee per year, is the second biggest coffee producer in the world, second only to Brazil.
Dak Lak province alone accounts for 60 percent of Vietnam’s coffee production and is home to the famous coffee brand Trung Nguyen.
Pele, 60 years old, has scored 760 official goals in his career and is the top scorer of all time. He was voted as the Football Player of the Century by the IFFHS International Federation of Football History and Statistics in 1999. |