Singapore, September 12, 2025: Reigning Cambodian Premier League champions PKR Svay Rieng FC have a key, overarching goal; to be viewed both on and off the pitch as one of the leading clubs in the ASEAN region.
Not content with dominating the domestic scene, where Svay Rieng won back-to-back league titles as well as the 2024 Hun Sen Cup over the last 18 months, the club have set their sights on competing with the heavyweights of Southeast Asian football.
Having impressed in the inaugural season of the ASEAN Club Championship Shopee Cup™, Svay Rieng returned with renewed confidence in the aftermath of a campaign where the club set a series of new benchmarks for themselves and Cambodian football.
“We feel that the club’s in a good place and we’re going the right way,” says general manager Christopher Grant. “The club’s very ambitious and is operating in a very European style.
“We have a European technical staff, and we’ve got an open-minded and supportive owner who wants to grow. We’ve got a good mix representing our local identity but also driving forward with international standards that we feel are right for the club.
“That has been leading the club to success both domestically and internationally.”
That development has seen Svay Rieng begin to make their mark on the regional and continental scene.
Under Spanish coach Pep Muñoz, the team enjoyed a stellar 2024/25 season that started by securing a place in the group phase of the Shopee Cup™ with a comprehensive playoff victory over Young Elephants FC from Laos.
From there the positives continued. Wins over Terengganu FC and Shan United FC saw Svay Rieng finish third in the group phase of the Shopee Cup™ - narrowly missing out on a place in the knockout rounds – as well as a successful defence of their domestic league title.
To cap it off, Svay Rieng marched into the final of the new AFC Challenge League, becoming the first club from Cambodia to progress so far in a continental competition.
Now the task is to match – or even surpass – those achievements at a club that have been on an upward trajectory since being taken over by the current owner, businessman Dy Vichea, in 2013.
“Year-by-year he’s been supporting the club,” Grant says of the chairman. “He wants to improve the football club, he wants to improve Cambodian football and put it on the map continentally. “He wants to show that Cambodian football is something to pay attention to and that it can be a player in the region. He’s helping to drive our ambition by wanting to be one of the best in the region.”
Since his arrival in 2017, Grant has initiated an overhaul of the entire club on both the playing and administrative side, building up the media, marketing and sales departments as well as human resources and finance almost from scratch. Svay Rieng Stadium, where the club play their home matches, is also undergoing renovations to more than double its capacity to around 7,500 spectators while further efforts are being made to grow the fanbase.
The playing side, too, has seen a major uptick in activity. While Svay Rieng had already been among Cambodia’s leading clubs, winning the Hun Sen Cup four times and the league title in 2013, strategic efforts to improve youth development and recruitment have been key.
“What we’ve done is become a leader in many ways, especially in terms of recruitment,” says Grant. “We were probably the first club in Cambodia to use Wyscout and Instat to do proper analysis and recruitment.
“On top of that we were probably the first club to go really deep in analysis, using these platforms.
“We have a full-time analyst at the club and it’s an area we’re looking to improve on. We’re using a lot of technology and data, and we’ve built the club on that. That’s very new for the Cambodian football landscape."
“This year we’ve started a sports science and medicine department, so we’ve invested heavily there and that allows us to do a lot of testing on the players and work on injury prevention. We’re working to build better, more robust athletes.”
Brazilian imports Gabriel Silva and Cristian Roque were instrumental to the club’s achievements last season and, while Silva has since moved to Malaysia to join Terengganu, Cristian has remained to spearhead the club’s trophy-winning efforts this campaign.
Indeed, Silva’s departure is one of several at a club that sees itself as a potential launchpad for those seeking to develop their careers. Coach Munoz, too, has left, joining Chinese Super League outfit Shenzhen Peng City FC to be replaced by Matt McConkey, his former assistant.
McConkey knows the club well having joined in 2021 and has overseen a strong start to the new season, with three successive wins in the Cambodia Premier League plus an opening day victory over Shan United in the Shopee Cup™.
“We use competitions like the Shopee Cup™ for bench marking,” says Grant. “How far away are we from the best clubs in this region? We always ask ourselves: how close are we to Buriram United, Bangkok United, Selangor FC, Bali United and all these kinds of clubs?"
“Without having this competition and this platform to compete against these clubs, it’s very difficult to tell because the leagues are so different."
“We want to be in the same conversations as the Burirams and the Johor Darul Ta’zims. They’re huge clubs and why can’t we be in that conversation? We need these competitions to show that we can compete and to allow us to see how close or how far away we are.”
Svay Rieng play Shopee Cup™ newcomers Nam Ðįnh FC of Vietnam on September 25 at an away game at Thiên Trường Stadium, Ninh Binh.
For other Shopee Cup™ match day 2 fixtures, please visit https://aseanutdfc.com/asean-club-championship and @aseanutdfc on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.
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