UNITED City FC has added one more acquisition to solidify its roster for the upcoming Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champion’s League campaign.
UCFC, the reigning Philippines Football League (PFL) titleholder, announced on Wednesday, March 24, 2021, on its official Facebook page that it signed Kiwi winger Jai Ingham.
Ingham will help man UCFC’s attack along with the likes of striker Bienvenido Marañon, Stephan Shröck, Mike Ott, Kieran Hayes and Mark Hartmann.
The 29-year-old Ingham played nine matches off the bench for Brisbane Roar in the 2019-2020 A-League season, wherein the club finished fourth in the league.
Ingham had an impressive passing success rate of 76.3 percent. He was also decent on the defensive end with a 66.7 tackling success rate.
Ingham started his football career with Olympic FC in the National Premier League in 2012 before joining the Brisbane Roar’s youth team on 2013. He finally made his way to the A-League, Australia’s top tier football league, by signing with Melbourne Victory in 2016 and returned to Brisbane Roar in 2019.
With the departure of some of its key players from 2020, UCFC was very busy this off season and signed a total of 14 new players – Ingham, Hayes, American center back Jonny Campbell, South Korean veteran Da Hwon Jeong, Cebuano goalkeeper Kenry Balobo, Justin Bass, William Grierson, Adam Ried, Omid Nazari, Amin Nazari, Andreas Esswein, Cebuano Ryan Jarvis, Mark Hartmann and Curt Dizon.
UCFC is in Group I of the AFC Champions League along with China’s Beijing FC, J1 League champion Kawasaki Frontale and the playoff winner between South Korea’s Daegu FC and Thailand’s Chiangrai United. (EKA)