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 President Le Hung Dung and Permanent Vice President Tran Quoc Tuan. Mr. Dung and Mr. Tuan were the targets of a "bribery accusation" by a subordinate in 2015, which was later determined to be baseless. Most recently, both of them continued to be mentioned in a petition sent by former players and former 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 of 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 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 performance, specifically Becamex Binh Duong, SLNA, Saigon FC, HN T&T, 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 then U23 teams enter the Asian finals. The AFF Cup standard for the Vietnamese national team will only take place at 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 with coach H.Calisto in 2010, when Vietnamese football went through a really difficult period. V.League was full of 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 in the SEA Games 2011 and 2013. The youth teams were weak compared to their opponents in the region.

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, the number of matches for potential players has increased significantly.

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 say 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 going on for decades.

Who will replace Mr. Le Hung Dung?

The 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 presidency of the Federation would be a mistake.

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

This method may always make VFF an attractive organization, but the personnel with more choices have all rejected 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 at the same time.

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 time in power was associated with scandals in public opinion such as renting out facilities for massage, business, karaoke or occasionally taking advantage of "raising the price" of 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 these, Vice President Tran Quoc Tuan seems to be a bit “superior”, 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 taking on 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 occasionally only plays a critical role in the hope that VFF will do 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 race for the Chairman's seat 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