Who can be President of Vietnam Football Federation?

The recent presence and absence of the President of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) Le Hung Dung has become an "inspiration" for battles with all kinds of tricks to take that seat.

Old tricks, why hope for innovation?

If outsiders pay attention, they can see that in the past year, the VFF's high-ranking officials have often been in turmoil. Some individuals have been directly attacked, such as Chairman Le Hung Dung and Permanent Vice Chairman Tran Quoc Tuan. Mr. Dung and Mr. Tuan were once the targets of a "bribery accusation" by a subordinate in 2015, which was later determined to be baseless. Most recently, both were mentioned again in a petition sent by former players and referees to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

All of the above stories happened at the same time that Mr. Le Hung Dung rarely appeared in public. Mr. Dung's health has been a matter of special interest and discussion for over a year. Mr. Le Nguyen Hong, a member of the VFF Executive Committee, when asked about this, did not hesitate to say that Mr. Dung's illness has more or less made the VFF President's position more or less interested and noticed.

It is no coincidence that the petition of nearly 100 former players sent to the Minister was immediately linked by insiders to the battle surrounding the vacant chair of the President. The petition focuses on the current problems of Vietnamese football, such as referee errors in the V-League, the problem of “one owner, many teams”, the weaknesses of leading officials… A series of issues raised are all correct, even “old” in Vietnamese football.

The position of VFF President of Mr. Le Hung Dung (standing) suddenly became "hot" recently. Photo: VSI

However, V-League is a tournament of VPF. The decreasing number of spectators is also the problem of VPF and the teams themselves who cannot maintain their motivation or have poor results, specifically Becamex Binh Duong, SLNA, Saigon FC, HN T&T or Long An and Dong Thap.

It is also impossible to say that Vietnamese football is “at rock bottom” if people think that Vietnamese football is the national teams. The U16 and U19 teams and then the U23 teams enter the Asian Finals. The AFF Cup standard for the Vietnamese national team will not take place until the end of the year, while the AYA Bank Cup friendly tournament has recently been won.

It is a remarkable recovery, compared to the time after parting ways with coach H. Calisto in 2010, when Vietnamese football went through a really difficult period. V.League was filled with suspicions about negative matches, the Vietnamese team was eliminated from the group stage of the AFF Cup 2010, the U23 team did not compete successfully at the SEA Games 2011 and 2013. The young teams were out of shape compared to their regional rivals.

Recently, there was an article in Tuoi Tre newspaper stating that the achievements of youth teams were only thanks to youth training centers such as PVF, Viettel, HN T&T, HAGL... But in fact, there is no developed football in the world where the Federation trains youth. 10 years ago, the Federation often maintained its youth teams by taking players from the centers and investing in training and in the end they realized that it was a mistake.

A Federation that invests in youth football has training centers with good facilities, a good youth competition system, and invested teams for competition.

Current reality shows that U16 and U19 have participated in many tournaments, trained abroad, they have trained on a field that has been upgraded to standard, and the youth tournament system, as coach Dang Phuong Nam (Viettel) said, has significantly increased the number of matches for potential players.

And after exactly 13 years, Vietnam Football Federation has a new Technical Director, Mr. Gede (German) to be in charge of all youth teams in terms of technique and strategy.

Or on another aspect, Vietnamese football has uncovered two major negative cases recently, related to the match-fixing activities of players. One at The Vissai Ninh Binh Club and one in Dong Nai.

It is not wrong to think that negativity is a limitation, but it would be bad if we did not declare war on negativity when it is a deep-rooted problem that has been there for decades.

Who will replace Mr. Le Hung Dung?

What has been said above may easily lead someone to think that we are discussing a merit report with some limitations. But if we are responsible and fair, silence in the face of calculated moves towards the Federation's President's seat would be a mistake.

This method shows that it is nothing new compared to the times when VFF made waves to open up a change in personnel at the Federation. Meanwhile, in a professional social organization that should have transparency, can lobbying and competition like this open up a generation of VFF leaders to ensure that Vietnamese football will develop further?

This method probably always makes VFF an attractive organization, but the personnel with more choices all reject it. And if there is a need for a President who can sleep with Vietnamese football, is there anyone more suitable than the speculations in 2015 (when information appeared that Mr. Dung asked to withdraw due to health reasons)? At that time, the names of a series of candidates were also given.

Like Mr. Vo Quoc Thang - Chairman of the Board of Directors of VPF, Mr. Le Quy Phuong, Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Sports, or even Director of My Dinh National Sports Complex Can Van Nghia, who during his tenure was associated with scandals in public opinion such as renting out facilities for massage, business, karaoke or occasionally taking advantage of the opportunity to "price" My Dinh Stadium with VFF every time the national team played. Of course, we cannot fail to mention the VFF Standing members, such as Vice President Tran Quoc Tuan, Doan Nguyen Duc or Nguyen Xuan Gu.

Among them, Vice President Tran Quoc Tuan seems to be a bit more “outstanding”, as he has both seniority and expertise in football, has been closely involved with the youth teams in recent times, and is a “state employee”. However, Mr. Tuan also has weaknesses such as not being well-liked by the media, and holding many positions. Mr. Duc used to have high hopes, but is currently in a difficult period, to the point of having to “temporarily put football aside”, as Mr. Duc shared last year. Vice President Nguyen Xuan Gu is simply in charge of the media sector. Mr. Gu has confided several times that he does not dream about power, and only occasionally plays a critical role in the hope that the VFF will be better.

Surrounded by old people, it is understandable that up to now, the sports industry still does not know which way to go. People know that when he expressed his wish to withdraw, Mr. Le Hung Dung was encouraged to continue. The reason is to give the industry more time to choose an optimal solution. But invisibly, this makes the competition for the Chairman position even more fierce. For those who are knowledgeable, Vietnamese football will certainly go through many storms, until the real candidate appears, and properly sits in the position of Mr. Le Hung Dung now.

According to Thethaovanhoa