Three candidates for VFF presidency as Nguyen Duc Thuy targets 600-1,000 billion VND per year

The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) has announced its list of nominations for key positions and Executive Committee seats for the 10th term, covering 2027-2031. Three candidates stand for the presidency: incumbent Tran Quoc Tuan; Nguyen Xuan Vu, the term-nine vice president in charge of communications; and Nguyen Duc Thuy, vice chairman of Sacombank's board and the man at the head of Ninh Binh Club. Of the three dossiers, Thuy's is the most densely packed with financial figures, and that is why it has drawn more attention than the other two.

His campaign programme targets 600-1,000 billion VND raised each year from 2027 through social mobilisation and revenue from sponsorship, corporate partnerships, broadcasting rights, digital content and football services. Attached is a pledge that from 2027, 100 percent of the funding for VFF-run operations and football development will come from socialised and self-generated sources, with no state budget involved. For a federation that has long relied on an annual allocation, that is a promise to change how the organisation runs, not merely a promise of more money.

Three names, three ways of standing before the congress

Tran Quoc Tuan enters the list as the sitting president, carrying the continuity of the apparatus. Nguyen Xuan Vu is tied to communications, a field in which the image of the national team and the professional leagues has been pushed forward for years. Nguyen Duc Thuy comes from banking and from the ownership seat of a club, where balancing income and expenditure arrives before every technical decision. The list also includes nominations for Executive Committee members, but attention settles on the seat that decides budgets, personnel and the direction of the league system.

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Two matters need separate answers: where the money is raised, and where it flows. The first half of the programme is set out clearly; the second is where the argument begins. The dossier stresses that all mobilised resources must be used for the stated purpose, publicly, transparently, with auditing and under the supervision of VFF members. Those commitments only carry weight with specific deadlines attached: quarterly or seasonal disclosure, which auditor, and which documents members are allowed to see.

One detail is easily missed, namely the roughly 80 billion VND allocated annually for football duties. The candidate wants to work with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Vietnam Sports Administration to review how resources are distributed, giving priority to sports that need extra funding, especially those capable of competing for medals at the Asian Games and the Olympics. Set beside the pledge of full self-reliance, this sketches a VFF that no longer receives state money, and a stream of public funding redirected elsewhere. That is a change in the nature of the operation.

The 600-1,000 billion VND a year is many times the 80 billion VND above, and it creates a familiar risk: when a budget depends on companies, the power to set direction drifts toward those companies. Vietnamese football has passed through periods when sponsorship contracts shaped schedules, competition names and even event organisation. A mechanism that publishes contract values, durations and conditions would keep the line between sponsor and administrator intact. Without it, financial self-reliance tends to stay on paper.

Club support packages and an unfinished sum

The programme aims to support 2-3 billion VND a year for each qualified local federation, and to build packages of 3 billion VND per V-League club, 2 billion VND per First Division club and 2 billion VND per women's club each season. This is the most concrete section, and it reveals the real scale of spending.

With around 14 V-League clubs, more than 10 First Division clubs and fewer than 10 women's teams, the club packages alone come to roughly 80 billion VND a season. Add 63 local federations at 2-3 billion VND each and, if all of them qualify, recurring obligations reach 200-270 billion VND a year. Most of the programme's budget is locked into recurring costs before a single dong reaches youth development. That is not wrong, since a stable club underpins everything else, but it demands a disbursement mechanism: support tied to seasons and conditions on facilities, youth squads and medical care for players, rather than an equal split.

A 16-18 team V-League and the fixture calendar

On the professional game, Thuy wants VFF to work with VPF, the clubs and experts on expanding the V-League and the First Division, including options for a 16-18 team V-League and an 18-20 team First Division. The stated aim is more match time for players, especially young ones coming through academies.

The direction carries a chain of technical consequences. The V-League currently has 14 teams over 26 rounds; 16 teams means 30 rounds, 18 teams means 34. An 18-20 team First Division means 34-38 rounds. Every added round is another matchday, another flight, another refereeing crew that must meet the standard, another kickoff slot to negotiate with broadcasters. In a country with a long rainy season and pitches that vary by province, expansion cannot be separated from upgrading infrastructure and training referees. Expanding quickly without those three conditions produces more matches, not more good players.

Women's football, referees and seats in Asia

For the women's game, the programme targets a system of 8-10 teams able to operate sustainably. V-League clubs are encouraged to found women's sides, link with existing ones or act as sponsors to widen participation. Connecting academies, schools, clubs and localities is meant to create a continuous pathway for players, combining competition with schooling and healthcare.

Personnel targets come with dates. From 2027, at least 20 additional staff are to be trained in foreign languages, governance and professional skills; by 2030 the aim is at least 5-10 more Vietnamese recruited, appointed or regularly assigned at AFF, AFC and FIFA. For referees, the goal is focused investment in around 10-20 promising referees and assistant referees to raise the chance of appointments to major Asian matches. Internationally, the candidate wants closer ties with leading clubs worldwide, hosting matches, exchanges and training in Vietnam, with continental and world events studied subject to meeting hosting standards.

What deserves the closest scrutiny

The programme closes on a principle: performance must be judged on real results, with a monitoring mechanism involving VFF members. The principle is right, and it is also the hardest part to deliver, because it asks the author to submit to a measure held by someone else.

From my experience following Vietnamese football's congress cycles, campaign programmes tend to survive the first few months of a term before being swept up by fixtures and short-term decisions. What keeps such a programme alive is not the printed copy handed to delegates, but a balance sheet published on a regular schedule, detailed enough that a First Division club or a provincial federation can check whether it sits inside the budget that was promised. If the 10th term manages that, the most memorable legacy will sit in transparency rather than in the size of the fundraising.