"Boss" Thang: "I use the money to buy players for charity"

“I don’t lack money for football but I don’t have enough money to spend on outrageous contracts. I use that money to do charity work, help the poor, and it naturally feels more meaningful,” Mr. Thang confided.

As the first person to standardize the business model for the football team, build a training ground that meets international standards, and once owned a Sports newspaper, Mr. Thang is like a boss who is always a pioneer in football, but in the end still cannot survive.

Born to be a boss

30 years ago, in Phu Dinh, people often saw a skinny, short student working hard from one brick factory to another. The workers clicked their tongues and pointed in a puzzled way: "Young master, at the age of having fun, parents have a lot of money but all day long he is only fascinated by brick kilns."

That young master is Vo Quoc Thang, who at the age of 19 took over Dong Tam brick company from his father, Vo Thanh Lan.

Since birth, Mr. Thang has been attached to bricks when his father founded Dong Tam brick factory at the age of 2. Inheriting the business genes of his parents, instead of paying attention to studying at school or the pleasures of young adults, he was interested in a very peasant-like job - making bricks.

Mr. Thang recalled that at that time, he had only finished high school, so he had to spend many times more time studying than others: “I took part-time classes and skills classes whenever possible. My study time could be calculated as the same as that of a person taking a doctorate, only then could I work with my employees.”

When asked if Dong Tam was the greatest asset he inherited, Mr. Thang shook his head: “Money does not bring success, the important thing is how to earn it. The greatest asset my parents gave me is only complete in three words: Virtue, Modesty, Patience. It is also my guiding principle in the business world.”

Mr. Thang plays football

If you only meet Mr. Thang once, the first thing you will feel about him is that he is a careful and polite person in communication. Even in small gestures like smoking for fun, flicking the cigarette ash into an empty beer can, he does not leave even a single ash residue. He often wears a black suit, white shirt and red tie because according to him, white represents transparency and prestige, red represents strong development, and black is the color of the earth, which is closely associated with his life. But meeting Mr. Thang for the second or third time, especially when talking about football, he seems to transform into a different person. Same me, same you, same this guy, same that girl, very rustic.

People say that at the time when he had gained fame and profit from football, Mr. Thang was no longer interested and wanted to quit, when he refused to invest money, causing Dong Tam Long An to be relegated at the end of the 2011 V-League season, but that is not true.

Remember, in 2002, he was the one who invited Calisto to Vietnam, but he did not accept him for himself but introduced him to the VFF. Only after the Tigers Cup that year, when the VFF fired Calisto, did he welcome "coach To" to Long An. After Mr. "To" brought DTLA 2 championship titles, he nominated him to the VFF again, but the VFF refused. In 2008, although DTLA faced many difficulties, he once again recommended Mr. "To" to the national team. Through that, Mr. Thang proved that he did not come to football for personal gain.

Mr. Thang is the first person in the football village to standardize the professional model. He has his own international standard training ground in Ben Luc, has a rest room for players with a closed and systematic recovery system, and he also has his own sports newspaper like the leading foreign clubs.

Instead of investing in buying good players, he bought foreign coaches with good CVs, because he believed that long-term football career requires a solid foundation, but it seems that his thinking is outdated in the current "money storm" era. Now, his weight rooms, hydrotherapy baths, and massage rooms are covered in dust, the Sports World newspaper was suspended, and his DTLA was relegated...

Asked if he was bored with football or not, that he let DTLA be relegated so easily, Mr. Thang pondered: “There are still many people suffering, I don’t lack money for football but I don’t have extra money to spend on sky-high contracts. I use that money to do charity work, help the poor, it suddenly feels more meaningful…”

According to Vietnam Post