Budiey
AirAsia Honours National Football Heroes With Special Aircraft Livery
SEPANG, 22 NOVEMBER 2011 – AirAsia, a brand that is actively associated with sports and youth, will be honouring our Malaysian heroes with a special aircraft livery. Expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2012, the “Harimau Muda” livery will feature a special design reflecting the momentous achievement.
AirAsia Berhad Group CEO Tan Sri Dr Tony Fernandes said, “The Harimau Muda team performed like true stars on the field yesterday and they definitely deserve a hearty congratulations on defending the gold medal for Malaysia and making the country proud. A twitter follower asked if I would paint a plane in Harimau Muda colours if they won, and I said yes. The Harimau Muda kept their pledge to win Malaysia the coveted gold medal, and I will keep my promise as the Harimau Muda team deserves it. This aircraft livery will remind us of how sports can unite a country, regardless of various beliefs and cultures and hopefully, this will inspire even more youth to take up sports and put Malaysia on the international map. On the other hand, it is good to see at least one ‘Tiger’ doing well” he added.
The team boarded a special chartered flight by AirAsia from Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Jakarta along with Youth and Sports Minister, YB Dato’ Sri Ahmad Shabery Cheek on Tuesday morning. Harimau Muda fans gathered in droves at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) to welcome the national heroes back to our shores.
The national football squad created history at the SEA Games with their first back-to-back victory, as well as defending the SEA Games football gold medal for Malaysia with a stellar performance throughout the match and a nail-biting penalty shootout with the Indonesia team yesterday.
The defending champions were expected to face a challenging task when it was announced that they were drawn in Group A which was also dubbed as the ‘Group of Death’ together with Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore in the SEA Games. However, the national side proved that it was a force to be reckoned with when the youngsters emerged at the top of the group to make it to the semi-finals where they downed Myanmar 1-0 to book a spot in the finals and brought back the gold medal for Malaysia.
