Suspending the duties of Head and Deputy Head of VFF Referee Board

This afternoon (June 9), VFF President Nguyen Trong Hy signed Decision No. 202/QD-LĐBĐVN on temporarily suspending the duties of Mr. Duong Vu Lam, Head of the Vietnam Football Federation Referee Board and Mr. Doan Phu Tan, Deputy Head of the Vietnam Football Federation Referee Board to serve the investigation of the Department of Police Investigation of Social Order Crimes (C45), Ministry of Public Security on suspicions that a group of referees received illegal compensation at the 2013 National Football Championship.

The validity of the Decision is from the date of signing until the conclusion of the investigation into the above case by the police and the Vietnam Football Federation.

In addition to the Decision to temporarily suspend the duties of the Head and Deputy Head of the Referee Board, VFF President Nguyen Trong Hy also signed Decision No. 203/QD-LĐBĐVN assigning the responsibility of the VFF Referee Board to Mr. Nguyen Tan Hien, Member of the VFF Referee Board.

Both the Head and Deputy Head of the Referee Board have been suspended from their duties. Photo: VSI

Mr. Duong Vu Lam and Mr. Doan Phu Tan are responsible for handing over the work of the Arbitration Board to Mr. Nguyen Tan Hien from the date of issuance of this decision.

The above strong measures of VFF were taken after an extraordinary meeting of the VFF Standing Committee because the newly discovered bribery scandal of referees has caused public outrage.

Regarding the "closed-door consultation" working viewpoint of the Referee Board in cases of referee violations, VFF President Nguyen Trong Hy was indignant: "The Referee Board concealed information, deliberately only handled internally with each other without reporting to VFF leaders, which is unacceptable."

Also today, at the request of the Deputy Director of the General Department of Sports and Physical Training, Vice President of VFF Pham Van Tuan, the referee team involved in the bribery scandal mentioned above, including main referee Dinh Hai Duong, assistants Pham Dac Chien, Do Manh Ha, and fourth referee Kieu Viet Hung, must redo the reports of the incident because the reports submitted in yesterday's meeting were very sketchy and especially did not have the word "money" in them.

In the press, referee Dinh Hai Duong has consistently denied receiving bribes. The two teams Thanh Hoa and HA.GL have also denied any involvement, even the Thanh team's boss De boldly said "only a crazy person would give money to a referee".

The incident has now broken out and cannot be hidden any longer and Vietnamese football fans are eagerly awaiting the openness, transparency, accuracy and agility of C45.

According to Thethaovanhoa - DT