Expensive lessons for football teams in V.League
(Baonghean.vn) - Recently, Vietnamese football has had an unfortunate incident from SHB Da Nang Club. After the FIFA Court's decision, the club had to pay 72,000 USD to Slovakia's Banik Prievidza Club, which was the cost of training player Pham Thanh Tiep.
Behind this story is a problem that should wake up Vietnamese football teams.
In the past, the story of Vietnamese clubs having to compensate foreign players and foreign clubs because of not understanding FIFA regulations is no longer a rare story. Typical of these are teams such as Hai Phong, Nam Dinh and especially Thanh Hoa.
Heavily fined for foreign players not being allowed to keep their labor contracts
In 2019, FIFA issued a statement stating that Hai Phong Club violated regulations and had to compensate Stevens about 200,000 USD (nearly 5 billion VND). The amount includes salary, bonuses, signing fees, bank interest, litigation fees and mental damage fees for Stevens... According to the contract, the 33-year-old striker's salary is 8,000 USD per month.
This incident started when Stevens joined Hai Phong in 2015 and became a mainstay in the attack of the port city team. In May 2017, he reached an agreement to extend his contract for 2 more seasons (2018 and 2019). The two sides signed 4 contracts, but Stevens was not allowed to keep any of them. It was not until this foreign player asked for a labor contract to get a passport for his son born in Vietnam, he was not satisfied and then everything was revealed when Stevens filed a lawsuit, Hai Phong Club was fined.
Thanh Hoa Club's unjust losses
It was also because of the lack of understanding of FIFA regulations and laws that in 2022, Thanh Hoa was judged by FIFA to have lost the lawsuit against striker Gramoz Kurtaj. According to the decision of this organization, the Thanh Hoa team must pay 42,500 USD, equivalent to nearly 1 billion VND to Gramoz. That is the salary that Thanh Hoa Club still owes the player born in 1991. Specifically, the September salary is 7,500 USD, the remuneration from October is 35,000 USD. Both of these amounts are calculated with an additional 5% interest rate.
Previously, Thanh Hoa had terminated the contract with Gramoz at the end of August 2021. But according to the contract signed between the two parties, Thanh Hoa was still responsible for paying the remaining 2 months' salary to Gramoz in theory even if the tournament was stopped due to the Covid-19 epidemic. Therefore, the early termination of the contract made Gramoz decide to sue Thanh Hoa to FIFA, and the victory went to Gramoz.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time Thanh Hoa FC has been defeated by FIFA. In the past, Thanh Hoa had to pay 1.3 billion VND in compensation to Idrissa Sega Cisse, 4.5 billion VND to coach Fabio Lopez as well as 1.45 billion VND to Errol Stevens, also related to the contract liquidation but did not pay the remaining salary fund as previously committed. In addition, Thanh Hoa FC also lost the lawsuit for breach of contract, having to compensate 4 billion VND to foreign player Igor Jelic even though he had not played a single minute. Not only that, related to these cases, the teams also had to pay very high fees to FIFA's Sports Court.
Fined for not updating FIFA's new circular
In February 2019, SHB Da Nang Club signed a contract with Pham Thanh Tiep, a Vietnamese-American player who joined Slovakia's Banik Prievidza training center at the age of 12 before joining the first team at the age of 17. The team thought that everything was done because they trusted the agent too much, but no, FIFA ruled that the Han River team had to pay 72,000 USD to the player's former team.
Because according to FIFA Circular 769 to "Encourage the training of young players and increase responsibility between clubs", when a player signs his first professional contract in a country other than where he trained, the registered club must be responsible for paying the training fee to the old team.
Accordingly, the payment is based on the continental federation classification framework and club classification and multiplied by each year of training. For example, in the case of SHB Da Nang and player Thanh Tiep, a Slovakian team belonging to the category 3 club and AFC, the amount will be 10,000 USD, multiplied by 6 years of training, the amount to be paid to Banik Prievidza FC is 60,000 USD.
FIFA also stipulates that the new club is obliged to pay this amount within 30 days of signing the contract. Because they did not receive it, the Slovakian team sent two letters requesting payment, before filing a lawsuit with FIFA. FIFA ruled that the Han River team must fulfill its obligations to Banik Prievidza FC. In addition to the training fee, they will have to pay an additional 5% interest per year. For some reason, the club did not respond to FIFA and ignored the appeal deadline until December 28, 2020. So SHB Da Nang lost a total of 72,000 USD for a player who only played 3 matches.
In these matters, the Vietnam Football Federation and the clubs themselves need to be more aware of updating and complying with regulations and circulars. Because just one mistake can cost a huge amount of money, literally “losing money and getting sick”./.
