'If you dare to do it, you must dare to bear the consequences'

(Baonghean) - Last week, Vietnamese football suddenly became “famous” worldwide with the scandalous incident that occurred at Thong Nhat Stadium between Long An and Ho Chi Minh City. Believing that the referee had called the penalty wrongly, Long An players protested by “turning their backs” to allow the home team to score several consecutive goals, much to the amazement of those who witnessed the match. The world press called this a “tragicomedy” of Vietnamese football.

After the incident, the public and Vietnamese football fans also expressed their indignation at the offensive behavior of Long An players. The VFF Disciplinary Board also quickly intervened to deal with and impose quite heavy penalties on those who committed offensive behavior. Accordingly, Quang Thanh and Minh Nhut were banned from playing for 2 years. Chairman Vo Thanh Nhiem and coach Ngo Quang Sang were banned from football activities for 3 years. Long An Club was fined 100 million VND.

Upon hearing the news, those who were punished seemed to be “dumbfounded” by the sentence given by VFF. Because for people like Minh Nhut and Quang Thanh, they are the pillars of their families, being “suspended” means unemployment. And at the age of over 30, taking a break from football for 2 years will almost certainly make them lose the ability to return to playing at the top level.

Perhaps with Minh Nhut and Quang Thanh, when they committed these offensive acts, they did not think about the consequences, but only acted "for satisfaction"... forgetting that they were professional players and had to behave professionally. But what is reprehensible is that even the leaders such as Club President Vo Thanh Nhiem and Coach Ngo Quang Sang did not stand up to stop the players but instead incited and followed suit... causing the match to "break down", and Vietnamese football to become ugly in the eyes of many people.

The actions of the players and the Board of Directors of Long An Club make Vietnamese football ugly. Photo: Internet

The consequences are clear, but in life, "if you haven't beaten someone yet, your face will be red as wine, if you have beaten someone, your face will be yellow as turmeric", instead of "if you have the guts to do it, you have the guts to accept it", both Long An players and coaches complained that the VFF's punishment was too harsh, ending their careers, even goalkeeper Minh Nhut spoke up "VFF indirectly killed my mother, because half of my salary is for my mother who is on dialysis"!

The problem here is that players and teams always want VFF to “take it seriously” to have a clean tournament, so that their teams do not suffer losses, but if any team or player is penalized, they complain, blame it as “unfair, lacking transparency” and tell their own story in hopes of having their sentences reduced. And sometimes VFF also “changes the sentence” because of public pressure, so many times when hearing VFF announce a penalty, many people still do not believe it and wait to “see later” because it is very possible that it is just “lifting high and hitting lightly”!

Duc Dung