A new chapter in the history Vietnamese football is opening up after all 28 club bosses in the top two leagues -- V-League and First Division -- unanimously stood up to slam down a decade of absolute leadership by the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF).
Hanoi ACB club chairman Nguyen Duc Kien (standing) strongly criticized the VFF's poor management at a meeting in Hanoi last month and called on other clubs to vote for a restructure in the VFF. Photo: Tuoi Tre
Lagging behind
Match attendance has steadily fallen over the last decade, while outcries against corrupt refereeing and stadium violence have consistently ratcheted up. On top of that, youth training has come virtually to a standstill with no effective breakthrough in boosting grassroots football training.
In the past ten years since the topflight V-League labeled as 'professionalism' in 2001, the Vietnam’s football governing body (VFF) has faced the same biggest challenge: the lack of investment fund for football, especially for women’s and youth football.
No effective measures yet have been introduced to solve it.
Corrupt refereeing has reached such a level that fans are firmly convinced that the champion teams are the one who gave away the fattest envelopes to referees while demoted teams are the most honest ones. Under the leadership of the VFF, the winning team has gained nothing but the loss of respect of their fans.
And yet, the VFF refused to make a change by setting up a shareholding company to run the top leagues, which is consistent with FIFA/AFC recommendation. Instead, they wanted football to remain under the total control of the VFF’s organizing board -- until all 28 club bosses stood up and demanded otherwise in a meeting last month.
It’s not only the victory of the force for progress and development, but also of the power of money as represented by the club bosses.
They have shown great patience, hoping for improvement and change in the management of football from the governing body (VFF) in the past ten years.
At the end of the 2011 season that terminated in August, many club owners voiced their disappointment towards the VFF, announcing they were reluctant to sink more money into their teams when match results were decided by corrupt referees, not the talent or skills of the players on the field, nor by their coaches.
It has long been a practice in Vietnamese football that clubs usually give referees envelops ahead of the games ‘to beg’ the officials to give them more favorable treatment on the pitch.
Pham Phu Hoa, manager of Dong Tam Long An which was relegated to the 2012 First Division, told local media at the end of the season two months ago that the club preferred to invest money in football and not in bribing referees.
The club owner Vo Quoc Thang admitted he was mulling over pulling the plug on all investment in his club. Boss Tran Dinh Long of Hoa Phat Hanoi filed a petition to Hanoi sports authorities at the end of the season to announce his termination of involvement in football and transferred his club to Nguyen Duc Kien, owner of Hanoi ACB.
Renowned coach Nguyen Thanh Vinh of Hoa Phat Hanoi condemned referees’ complete sway over Vietnamese football in the past seasons.
Those strong protests forced the VFF to make a ‘band-aid’ solution to suspend three referees for the entire 2011-12 season and warned three others for their “inaccuracy in blowing the whistle that has triggered public protests.”
However, clubs said their frustration and discontent did not come from referees only but from the management of the VFF, and demanded that the system be reformed.
Hoang Anh Gia Lai club chairman Doan Nguyen Duc blames the VFF to take responsibilities for match attendance dropping while corrupt refereeing and violence surging (Photo: Tuoi Tre)
Even a worm will turn
Recently, seven V-League clubs, or half of the members of the topflight league in Vietnam, announced their decision to leave the league and establish their own league in a move to protest the corrupt refereeing and cover-up of the VFF.
It was not just a threat, but a well-planned action by the bosses in the runner-up to the regular meeting held in September in Hanoi to review the last season.
Hoang Anh Gia Lai FC owner Doan Nguyen Duc led the clubs’ protests by declaring that, “Each Thai club spends averagely US$1 million a season but here in Vietnam, a club pays $5 million. And the result is our fans are walking out on us. The main reasons stem from the organizing board under the VFF, corrupt refereeing and loose disciplines.”
“A business group that produces poor output must be restructured, why not the VFF that has failed to stop match fixing and other troubles in the last 10 years?” Duc asked angrily at the meeting chaired by the VFF chairman Nguyen Trong Hy and attended by a full set of other football officials.
Dong Tam Long An club boss Vo Quoc Thang voiced his support for the radical plan, “This plan is the best for the developments of our football and I am sure after two seasons under the new model, Vietnamese football will turn out to be more interesting than Thai’s.”
Hanoi ACB club owner Nguyen Duc Kien seemed to assume the presiding right by calling upon all 27 remaining club bosses to reject the proposal by the VFF to elect members for the organizing board for the new season and instead vote for the establishment of a company to operate the top leagues.
The VFF witnessed unanimous agreement by all 28 owners and had no other choice but to go along with the new plan.
Mai Liem Truc, former chairman of the VFF, was convinced that it was time for radical change at the VFF. Comparing the VFF to a corporation, with its executive committee as the board, the chief of its competition board as the production chief, and officials in charge of sponsorship as marketing officials, he argued that good products and effective marketing are required for a nation’s football leagues to succeed.
There is no reason why major football nations have long applied the formula but the VFF couldn’t adopt it, Truc pressed the VFF.
The bottled-up anger these clubs have tried to suppress for a decade has burst forth to the surface and forced the VFF to loosen their grip and carried out procedures to set up a company to run the leagues.
Source: Tuoi Tre
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