With less than one month to go until the Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang kick off, Indonesia hopes hosting the biggest Asian sports event will help revive the troubled fortunes of its national football team and act as a springboard for the team to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Li Qiong has more.

Indonesia's football team was banned from international play in 2015 because of government meddling in the domestic league, ruling the side out of the 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup qualifying campaign. FIFA ended the suspension in 2016, though Indonesia's FIFA ranking has dropped to 164th in the world, slotted between Belize and Fiji, despite the game's huge popularity in the Southeast Asian country of more than 250 million people.

ILIJA SPASOJEVIC INDONESIAN FOOTBALLER "Of course, we always try to win and become a champion but our primary target is to win the heart of Indonesian people with our performance."

The Asian Games, which are set to run from August 18th to September 2nd, are expected to draw nearly 17,000 athletes and officials and more than 100,000 spectators. The 24-team men's football tournament, which has an under-23 age limit plus three over aged players, will take place in four stadiums in West Java province, while the women's event will be held in Palembang in Sumatra.

JOKO DRIYONO INDONESIA FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION DEPUTY CHAIRMAN "Asian Games is a starting point and The Football Association of Indonesia wants to achieve more than that, if we have to set a short term plan that would be Olympics 2024."

Indonesia's football association and the government are committed over the next three to five years to improving infrastructure for the sport at all levels to support this target. Spain's former Under 21 coach Luis Milla was appointed manager of the team at the start of 2017 in order to overhaul the national squad, but they have a long road ahead.