After the penalty for Long An, will order be restored on the pitch?

(Baonghean.vn) -“We reacted on the field as a whole group… and I was not the leader,” Long An captain Quang Thanh said bitterly. What fans are wondering is: “After such a severe penalty, will order on the Vietnamese football field be restored?”

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Many people will laugh silently when Long An, the team that holds high the flag of clean football, is "beheaded" from the CEO, head coach, captain to goalkeeper by a sentence that is considered the most severe in the history of Vietnamese football. Some people even sarcastically said: "Who said when in Rome, do not follow the Romans?", but every game must have its own rules. Long An was punished for deliberately breaking the rules of the game and disrespecting the audience.

Single loss, double loss

A "historical story" that anyone who has a deep understanding of Vietnamese football cannot forget is that in 1994, the late Head of the VFF Inspection Committee, To Hien, stood up at the tournament summary conference and declared: "Which team says they are clean, raise your hand". Surprisingly, no one dared to raise their hand, the audience was completely silent, from VFF leaders to club representatives, many faces bowed their heads... as if in self-admission.

In the context of "dark and light", Dong Tam Long An Brick - the predecessor of Long An - is considered by the audience to be a clean football team, because it is led by clean bosses. Long An is ready to fight, if they lose, they will be relegated but they are determined to "not ask - not give to anyone" and of course never accept to pay "anti-penalty" money. It is also a collective that is systematically built towards sustainable development, determined not to pursue money to spoil the players.

This training session of Quang Thanh and Minh Nhut at the headquarters of Long An Club could be the last training session of their football career. Photo: VNE

As a leading team in building internal regulations to detail the rules for club members, including the coaching staff, players... to maintain their image during training, living and competing. However, in a moment of anger in response to the fact that "they were penalized in every match", the officials, coaching staff and players could not control their emotions, they broke everything.

Having to pay 160 million VND in fines and being isolated from football life for a total of 10 years for 4 officials, coaches and players of Long An is the sentence that the Disciplinary Board has announced, but has Vietnamese football returned to its orbit? That is the big question that fans are interested in.

Questions

Is there any sponsor still interested in investing in football when one scandal has not been resolved and another scandal has followed, each one bigger than the last? The fact that Long An has imposed an internal penalty, accepted another penalty from VFF, and changed the entire old team, Long An's story is considered stable. But it is not for nothing that just from a penalty kick, all Long An players were "frozen" collectively? If the root of the problem is not found and resolved, then tomorrow players Minh Nhut and Quang Thanh (who will most likely retire) will not be "convinced" by the penalties that VFF has imposed on them.

Many people wonder if order on the football field in Vietnam will be restored after the penalty for Long An? Photo: Internet

Is it possible that just punishing Long An like that will make things better…because after only 6 rounds, V-League 2017 is in chaos, with lawsuits in every round. Who will be the one to evaluate the capacity of the Organizing Committee and the kings of the field, who cannot stay out of the recent scandals? When the team does not trust the referee, when the referee thinks that the team is deliberately “falsely accusing and framing” them, when the managers themselves do not trust each other, then the audience will know who to believe.

Disciplining the officials, the coaching staff and the Long An players who deliberately destroy the image of Vietnamese football is necessary and timely. But clearly, if we stop there, it will only cause the "unreasonable" teams to suffer losses and unintentionally let ugly football reign!

Catcosan Vinh