Asking and giving in V-League

Coach Vo Dinh Tan quickly clarified that he only wanted to confirm that Khanh Hoa was not negative, and did not mean that other teams had "asked for points" as he had declared after round 17 last weekend. But once again, what he said made fans wonder: Is the current V-League still negative? Because just a few weeks ago, Mr. Duc himself caused a shock when he talked about a similar phenomenon, which was the "5 vs 1" story.

With decades of experience in football, the two above-mentioned characters cannot speak emotionally. Currently, Mr. Duc is the representative of a "founding father" club, with 17 years of experience playing in the V-League. Of the 14 teams this season, only Nam Dinh, SLNA and Da Nang have played against HAGL in the 2003 V-League - the time when the mountain town team played in the highest level of Vietnamese football. Mr. Duc has just finished 4 years as Vice President of VFF, while HAGL has had a seat on the VFF Executive Committee for 4 consecutive terms. Coach Vo Dinh Tan can be considered one of the stars of Khanh Hoa football with the famous number 7 shirt at a time when the coastal town team was still given the not-so-nice name: King of Relegation.

Those two people talking about negativity, there must be a problem.

If we believe Mr. Duc, then the statement of coach Vo Dinh Tan must be considered even more. Since returning to V-League 2015 with Khanh Hoa, Mr. Tan has turned a young and poor team into a "dark horse". Over the past 4 seasons, Khanh Hoa has won at least 40 points per season on average. Last year, they even rose to 3rd place - the best result since the team was still called Phu Khanh. However, after 17 rounds this season, Mr. Tan's team has only won 13 points with only 3 wins and is at the bottom of the table. At the same time last season, they won 7 matches, gained 28 points and ranked 2nd, just behind Hanoi.

Is that huge difference due to a decline in expertise? It is difficult to say that a team that drew both matches against champion Hanoi, shared points at SLNA's and Thanh Hoa's stadiums, won at Nam Dinh... is a weak team. In the past 17 matches, only 3 matches did Khanh Hoa lose with a difference of 2 goals or more. A team that has played very well for 4 consecutive seasons, with a strong fighting spirit, yet is at the bottom of the table. Coach Vo Dinh Tan must have discovered something unusual to publicly declare that "only Khanh Hoa plays cleanly in the V-League".

Before the V-League was born, the national championship had alliances between groups of 4 or 5 teams, formed by relationships of "3 points to go - 3 points to return" nature.. Depending on the situation, the matches in the alliance will "concentrate points" on a team that is in danger of being relegated or needs more points to win the championship. In essence, alliances are often established to "fix the score" to avoid relegation, but it is rare that 3 or 4 teams have to "struggle" to compete to serve the championship goal of a certain team. Therefore, those alliances have a negative meaning. They do not play for the audience because the scores have been agreed upon. Any team that is not in these alliances is considered to have a ticket to relegation because they are "beaten up by a group".

The same goes for the championship competition. The "5 vs 1" that Mr. Duc recently accused is also a type of alliance with a close relationship. Its purpose is that the "satellite" teams will compete to help one team win the championship. These teams do not necessarily have to "gain points" for each other in a negative way like before, but focus all their efforts to defeat the opponents that stand in their way. Even if the competition is in the style of "trying to win", not arranging, "one boss - many teams" needs to be called by its true name, which is essentially negative. Because it is also a type of "giving points" to each other.

Analyzing the competition results, we will see many unusual coincidences.. Before the match with Hanoi today, TP. HCM was at the top of the table with 34 points. However, they only earned 8 points in a total of 6 matches with the teams: Hanoi, Da Nang, Saigon, Quang Nam and Quang Ninh. These are the teams that are said to be related to the description "5 against 1" by Mr. Duc. Thus, the ratio is 23% compared to the number of points that TP. HCM currently has. On the contrary, the second team in the table, Hanoi, won 13 out of 15 maximum points against the above teams, which is 42%. With the above numbers, if they cannot beat Hanoi in the "early final" match at Thong Nhat Stadium today, then as Mr. Duc said, TP. HCM should forget about the championship because both teams still have 3 matches with the "5 against 1" group in the last 8 rounds.

It would be too arbitrary to conclude that there was anything negative just from that. However, this has not only happened recently. Going back to the last 3 seasons, after the V-League had all 5 teams mentioned above, the numbers were surprisingly similar, especially in the 2016 and 2017 seasons - when Hanoi T&T (the predecessor of Hanoi FC) and Quang Nam won the championship. That was the time when their competitors, Hai Phong and Thanh Hoa respectively, could not be crowned because they lost too many points to teams in the group suspected of "5 vs 1".

In 2016, Hai Phong topped the table for 18 rounds but eventually finished second despite having the same 50 points as Hanoi - the team that only topped the last 3 rounds. Of Hai Phong's 11 winless matches (5 draws, 6 losses), 2 draws and 4 losses were against Hanoi, Quang Nam, Da Nang, Saigon, Quang Ninh... meaning 16 out of 28 points were lost from this group. Similarly, 28 points were also lost, but only 4 of Hanoi's points were related to teams suspected of being "brothers".

In 2017, Quang Nam's championship was even more doubtful. Mr. Quyet's Thanh Hoa also held the number 1 position for 18 rounds but let Quang Nam win the championship despite having 48 points. At that time, Thanh Hoa lost quite a lot of points because of 9 draws and 4 losses. Of the 30 lost points, 22 points were against the "brother group". That means they only earned 17% (8 points) of the total points for the season from this group and 83% of the points from the rest of the V-League. On the contrary, with 9 draws and 4 losses, Quang Nam only lost 9 points from the "brother group".

From another perspective, let's look at where the points that Hanoi beat Hai Phong in the 2016 season came from: they got 18 out of 24 maximum points in 8 "internal" matches, accounting for 36% of the season's total points. This figure for Quang Nam a year later was 38%. It should be noted that because they played in the same group, the number of matches played by Hanoi and Quang Nam were both less than Hai Phong and Thanh Hoa. These rates are similar to what is happening this season.

Can the above statistics be considered a coincidence? Is it enough to draw conclusions about the concepts of "point accumulation", "gang beating", "giving points"? If VFF cannot prove that Mr. Duc's or Coach Vo Dinh Tan's words are correct, they must at least show that the other statements are wrong.

In 2012, after the accusations of Mr. Kien, there was an inspection team to investigate the relationship between the football teams that were said to be owned by Mr. Hien. But in the end, no one could prove anything. However, according to the 2015 revised professional football regulations, the VFF may have to ask for help from specialized agencies from the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance as well as cite laws on investment, advertising... Everyone knows that most clubs today cannot do business to support themselves, and do not even have legal capital. So where do the operating funds come from? Checking the accounting books of the clubs is one way to prove it. For example, on the shirts of the Saigon or Quang Nam teams, there are no sponsors, but on Tam Ky and Thong Nhat stadiums, there are signs of SHB or T&T. Is that enough to prove that Mr. Hien's companies have "poured money" through advertising? Or like the case of Saigon FC, originally the Hanoi B team but when it moved to Ho Chi Minh City, no one knew who owned it. If it has not been converted, is it still under the control of Hanoi FC?

If no conclusion can be reached, will VFF or VPF be brave enough to conclude that V-League is truly clean?