'He gave the ham, she gave the wine bottle'

(Baonghean) - For a long time, the story of "first - where is the money" has always been a headache for those working in Vietnamese football. Because the current income from football activities cannot cover the activities of the clubs, but mostly still depends on the wallets of the philanthropists.

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SLNA really needs the support of sponsors to have new motivation before each season. Photo: Duc Chuyen

In fact, if any club is lucky enough to meet dedicated sponsors with deep pockets like Hanoi Club, HAGL, B.Binh Duong... then competing for the championship is within reach, otherwise, they will only worry about relegation!

In V.league, SLNA, although a club with a rich tradition, is ranked among the “poor”, often having to “cut their coat according to their cloth” when entering a new season. Every year, at the beginning of the season, SLNA club leaders are always waiting for the sponsors’ opinions to “improvise”. But in the end, it is still “use what you have”!

Because of the lack of financial resources, SLNA has been experiencing a “bleeding” of players in recent seasons. In order to prepare for the new season, the club should have a plan to buy or retain key players, but for SLNA that is a luxury. Therefore, the refrain of “using homegrown players” is still the same, which is young players promoted from the U21 and U23 teams, while foreign players are still cheap and abandoned.

In a recent interview with reporters, Mr. Ho Van Chiem - Executive Director of SLNA Club said: "Currently, to think about competing for the championship in V.League, clubs need to invest at least 80 billion VND each year, while SLNA, including the provincial support and sponsorship from Bac A Bank, has only about 50 billion VND."

Mr. Ho Van Chiem also confided that, doing football in Vietnam now, the general trend is that it is very difficult to attract investors, because unlike other countries, investing in football they can earn profits from television copyright, ticket sales, brand money... but in Vietnam, it only stops at "brand promotion" for investors, but there is no actual profit.

Therefore, only philanthropists who truly love football or need to “polish their names” will invest in football. But philanthropists who need to polish their names are very few and very unstable, because when they build a brand, they quickly find a way to withdraw from football.

According to Mr. Chiem, if we want sponsors to support football teams, the locality must also have policies to create favorable conditions and incentives for them, because doing business must make a profit!

With the motto "you have pork leg, I have wine bottle", many localities such as Thanh Hoa, Quang Ninh, Hai Phong... have sought to call for investors to invest in football clubs instead of having to use the provincial budget to support the team.

And in fact, thanks to this policy, the teams of Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, Thanh Hoa... are becoming new phenomena and forces in the V.League in recent seasons. Hopefully, in the near future, in addition to Bac A Bank, SLNA Club will also have more sponsors to accompany the team, with "Pride of Nghe An", so that SLNA can avoid the situation of "patching up" before each season!

Duc Chuyen