"Amateur" football reigns supreme

(Baonghean) -In the current difficult economic context, professional tournaments such as V.League are becoming less and less attractive, the First, Second and Third Divisions are also less interested, while amateur football (colloquially called “street football”) is developing rapidly everywhere in our province. In particular, the appearance of a series of famous stars such as Quoc Vuong, Lam Tan, Hai Nam, Tan Thinh, Phan Thanh Hoan… in amateur football clubs makes “street” matches more exciting and attractive.

The proliferation of grassroots football clubs

According to preliminary statistics, in the whole Nghe An province, there are currently over 300 amateur football clubs, of which Vinh City alone has over 200 clubs. At the two recent amateur football tournaments in Vinh City (Larue Beer Cup and Saigon Beer Cup), the matches were very exciting, attracting tens of thousands of spectators to cheer, most of the matches in the stands were always full of seats, especially in the final match, hundreds of people who could not buy tickets had to stand outside the fence to watch and cheer. Indeed, the atmosphere of the tournament in those two "amateur" football tournaments made the organizers of the First, Second, Third Divisions and the national youth football tournaments jealous.

It can be seen that the reason why "street" football matches attract a large audience is first of all due to the impartiality and fierceness in the competition. The problem of fixing, buying and selling, collusion in scores, and match-fixing in grassroots football tournaments is almost non-existent, so honesty and sportsmanship are more clearly demonstrated. In addition, the professional quality of "street" football matches is now quite high with many players having good techniques. Besides the football teams of agencies, schools, and businesses, there are also many spontaneous grassroots football clubs whose operating costs are entirely contributed by the members themselves. Some amateur football clubs have made their own mark and are known to many people such as: FC Thanh Co, FC Van Minh, FC Free, FC 100, FC Meo, FC BB, FC Vinh, FC Do Luong, FC Thai Hoa, FC Hong Dao... Vinh Veterans Club - mostly former SLNA players of all generations, are the pioneers of the "amateur" football movement in the area with the name commonly known as "afternoon football".

The formation of grassroots football clubs all have one thing in common: they originate from the passion for football of some people, they gather together, rent a field to practice together to improve their health, organize friendly matches, and then gradually form clubs. For football clubs in agencies, schools, and businesses, each time they represent their unit to participate in a tournament, the unit also takes care of the training and competition costs, while most spontaneous clubs not only rarely have the opportunity to participate in tournaments but also have to pay out of their own pockets to rent a field to practice. However, that passion and volunteering spirit are very important factors that create stability and sustainability for the maintenance of grassroots clubs.

Street football attracts V.League stars

Walking around the artificial turf fields at places like the Provincial Labor Culture House, SLNA training ground, Hung Phuc Ward Stadium, Vinh University, QK4 Sports Club, etc., everyone can easily see many famous football "stars" of SLNA and the whole country such as: Lam Tan, Quoc Vuong, Hai Nam, Phan Thanh Hoan, Nguyen Tan Thinh, Ho Thanh Thuong, Le Manh Huy, Van Sy Linh... wearing the shirts of "street" football clubs. Not to mention the countless faces who used to wear the shirts of SLNA and QK4 youth teams but before they could become famous, they fell out of favor and had to play "street" to satisfy their passion for the round ball.

Quoc Vuong confided: “Football to me is like daily food and drink, indispensable. If I can’t compete at the top level, I can play amateur football, as long as I can go out on the field to quench my thirst.”

Street football not only attracts the participation of stars who have passed their prime, but also attracts many stars who are playing in the V.League. Especially when the national championship - V.League ends or is on holiday, most SLNA players choose to join street football clubs to maintain their physical strength and ball feeling. In addition, as an SLNA player said, "The feeling of playing in a street football match also has its own interesting attractions, even though playing here is without salary or bonus". Through such matches, it can be seen that the level between street football stars and V.League stars is not much different, even in many situations, some street football stars are superior to V.League stars, because they are used to playing on artificial turf with a 7-man squad.

Formation of the "street" football profession

Most of the players who play “street” football are people who eat at home and carry prison and village, they pool their money to rent the field to play together for fun. However, there are still many “street” football clubs established by some “bosses” who are business owners and pay to maintain the team, these are the bosses who are well-off and willing to spend money. Thanks to that, many players make a living by playing “street” football. Of course, they must be excellent and have a “reputation”, or to put it more nicely, they are “street football stars”.

“Amateur football stars” are just like other normal football stars, they have to go through a training process, strive to affirm their name. Recently, the Vinh city amateur football village was abuzz with the story of Thai Ba Phi – a “amateur” football star from Do Luong who was invited by a boss in Quang Ninh to play for the football team of his company to compete for 1 week in the amateur tournament. In addition to the salary of 40 million VND, this boss also sponsored all the accommodation and travel expenses for Thai Ba Phi’s family to stay in Ha Long during the 1 week of the tournament. If we compare the income in 1 week like that, many stars in V.League would also dream of it. Of course, Thai Ba Phi’s case is very rare and for this player, he has only had one lucky chance like that.

Talking about income, most of the "street" football players probably want to join FC Van Minh. According to the players of this club and confirmed by the manager Nguyen Dam Van, all members of FC Van Minh have to both play football and work at the company, thanks to which they have a stable salary of 7 to 9 million VND per month. The spending nature of the owner of Van Minh passenger bus has attracted many "street" football stars to join the team. Even some famous stars such as striker Van Quyen and midfielder Nhu Thuat have expressed their intention to play for FC Van Minh after retiring from top football, and a recent information said that two former national players Le Quoc Vuong and Pham Hai Nam will soon officially become members of this grassroots football team.

The match between FC Van Minh and FC PTS at the Nghe An Business Delegation Football Tournament 2013.

The proliferation of amateur football clubs has contributed to diversifying sports activities in our province, promoting the development of sports training. However, with hundreds of amateur football clubs like that, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism still does not have a management and supervision mechanism to help the clubs operate in a systematic manner, there is no annual football tournament for the above-mentioned football clubs, so the teams have to continue to organize "street" matches with each other, from the place of happy beer drinking, there have appeared a number of betting matches between the parties with gambling nature with quite large sums of money. Some scuffles between players of the two clubs have also occurred.

Should the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism soon issue operating regulations for grassroots football clubs, move towards establishing the Nghe An Provincial Football Federation and organize annual tournaments to help clubs have a healthy and useful playground like the Provincial Martial Arts Federation and Badminton Federation have done very effectively in recent years?

Hoang Hao