Important changes of V.League season 2025/26

VPF's announcement was made in the context of theNational Professional Football League 2024/25is about to end. In particular, the 2025/26 season will start earlier than usual. Specifically, V.League 2025/26 will start from August 15 this year and is expected to end on June 20, 2026.

The National First Division will start from September 19 this year and is expected to end on June 20, 2026. Meanwhile, the National Cup will start from September 13 this year and is expected to end on June 28, 2026. The registration and transfer period according to the plan set by FIFA for Vietnamese football starts from July 15 this year to September 14 and the second phase is from January 25, 2025 to March 17, 2026.

In particular, for clubs in the V.League, each club can register a maximum of 4 foreign players and use a maximum of 3 players on the field. For teams participating in the Asian and Southeast Asian club tournaments, they can register a maximum of 7 foreign players.

The new feature next season is that First Division teams are also allowed to register and use a maximum of 1 foreign player. And of course, when V.League and National Cup teams meet, only 1 foreign player is allowed.

More importantly, in V.League 2025/26, teams with poor results, ranked 13th and 14th, will be directly relegated and the two teams at the top of the First Division will be directly promoted.

Thus, there will be 2 promotion and relegation spots without a play-off match like the current and previous seasons. This requires clubs to focus on preparing their forces early and invest more to compete for the championship or defend their place in the V.League.

This important decision of VFF as well as VPF creates conditions for teams with strong financial resources to have an advantage in purchasing more foreign players and increasing their squad, while teams with limited financial capacity will certainly face many difficulties in the coming season./.