The Phuket FC Andaman Dragon will play their first official game this Saturday (Jan 23) at the Surakul Stadium at 7pm against Malaysian side Kedah FC.
The local club is going through a major identity and front office change following their relegation from Yamaha League-1 at the end of last season. The Kata Group, which had previously owned and run the Phuket FC “Ronins” for the previous three years, relinquished control of the squad after relegation.
New team President MaAnn Samran changed the nickname of the club to Andaman Dragon as well as the squad's logo, which shows a dragon on top of an outline of Phuket island and a football at the bottom of the crest.
Details of the kit have yet to be announced.
Mr MaAnn believes the team – set to play in the Division 2 South regional league this upcoming season – can go back to Yamaha League-1 within a year after visiting a training session at Republic Phuket in Chalong yesterday (Jan 19).
While speaking with The Phuket News, Mr MaAnn confirmed that the team will begin their season against Pattani FC at Surakul Stadium on Sunday, February 28.
Mr MaAnn was confident that his team will collect the first three points of the season.
“While meeting with the players, I saw their enthusiasm and it made me believe that we can come back to League One within a year. But we still need strong support from the fans.” MaAnn said.
He also mentioned that former president of Phuket FC, Pramookpisitt Atchariyatchai, who stepped down after the team was relegated, is still a big support of the side.
“[Mr Pramookpisit] is still be a big fan of the team but he will not be involved with team management anymore,” MaAnn added.
Phuket Dragon's front office are now courting former sponsors from previous seasons, mainly Chang, Coca-Cola and Air Asia.
“We would like to keep our relationship with our former sponsors because they have supported us for such a long time. We do not want to terminate any good relationship that we already had with them.” MaAnn confirmed.