Jonathan Lao is coming off of an undefeated season with the York University Lions that saw him be a key member of a CIS National Championship winning squad. He is a former Toronto FC academy player, has represented Canada at various youth levels, and is one of the top players in League 1 Ontario with Vaughan.

On top of all of that Lao has been selected to represent Canada this summer at the FISU Summer Universiades which get underway this June in Gwangju, South Korea. He will be looking to help Canada improve of their results from Kazan in 2013 where they lost 4-1 to the host Russians in the quarterfinals.

Canada's best ever finish in the men's event at the competition for university students was 4th place in 2007. With a roster stocked with all-Canadians from the last CIS season this team certainly has the talent to make a deep run in the event. Players like Lao and his York teammate Casey D'Mello will have a big role to play in any success that this team does have.

Canada will compete in Group A with the host nation South Korea, Italy, and Taiwan. It is a group that Canada will be expecting to do well in as they hope to land a favourable matchup in the knockout rounds.

The problem is that representing Canada at this event comes with quite the cost for players. Once a player is selected to the roster it is up to them to fund their trip to the event and that comes with a price tag that can be quite steep for a University student.

In the past the Canadian Soccer Association sanctioned this event which meant that they helped to cover the costs of these players representing the country. That is no longer the case though and the athletes now have to provide for their own flights, accommodations, and food. It all adds up.

With that in mind, Lao is looking for help to make his dream of representing Canada yet again happen. He is aiming to raise $3,500 dollars to fund his trip and we are hoping to help him make it happen. The trade off is that we will do a feature on Lao about his time at the event afterwards which should be interesting given the very low profile nature of the Universiade.

If you want to help Lao represent Canada the link to his go fund me page is here.