600-1,000 Billion VND a Year: Inside Nguyen Duc Thuy's Bid for the VFF Chair

Three names on one sheet of paper: Tran Quoc Tuan, Nguyen Xuan Vu, Nguyen Duc Thuy. The Vietnamese Football Federation (VFF) has just published its nominations for the presidency and other key positions, together with the list of candidates for the executive committee, for term 10 (2027-2031). One of the three will run the VFF for the next four years.

Of the three campaign programmes, the one submitted by Nguyen Duc Thuy — vice chairman of Sacombank's board of directors and the man behind Ninh Binh FC — is the only document that puts figures on paper: money, clubs, staff, deadlines. To someone who reads financial statements for a living, a programme with numbers is a programme that can be audited. Anyone who promises to mobilise 600-1,000 billion VND a year must accept an audit every quarter; otherwise the figure is a slogan in bold type.

Term 9 closes with two financial facts. The VFF receives roughly 80 billion VND a year in state budget for football duties, while most professional clubs survive on sponsorship from local businesses. The women's league holds at around seven or eight teams, several without a stable training ground. Vietnamese referees are rarely appointed to knockout matches at continental level.

Against that backdrop, Thuy's programme targets 600-1,000 billion VND a year from 2027 through five channels: sponsorship, corporate partnerships, broadcasting rights, digital content and football services. He pledges that 100% of the VFF's operating costs will come from socialised and self-generated revenue, with no state budget; all resources must be used for their stated purpose, disclosed, audited and subject to oversight by VFF members. On the 80 billion VND granted annually, he wants to work with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Sports Authority to adjust how resources are allocated, prioritising sports with medal potential at the Asian Games and the Olympics.

I read this programme the way I read a prospectus: separating the pledge, the quantified part and the blank part.

The clearest numbers sit in the support package. From 2027: 2-3 billion VND a year for each eligible provincial federation; 3 billion VND a season for each V-League club; 2 billion for each First Division club; 2 billion for each women's club.

Put it on a spreadsheet. The V-League has 14 clubs, so 3 billion each makes 42 billion. The First Division has 12 clubs, 2 billion each makes 24 billion. If the women's game reaches its 8-10 team target, that is 16-20 billion. The total comes to 82-86 billion VND a season. Add roughly 30 eligible provincial federations at 2-3 billion each, and another 60-90 billion goes out. Direct disbursements land at 142-176 billion VND, or 15-30% of the 600-1,000 billion target. Most of the rest — administration, tournament operations, youth development, refereeing, international cooperation — carries no number at all in the document.

Figures do not lie, but the people who supply them do. A programme that aims to raise 600-1,000 billion while quantifying only 20-30% of its spending is incomplete as accounting, however complete it is as intent.

The next block is league expansion: a 16-18 team V-League and an 18-20 team First Division. With 14 clubs, a V-League season runs 26 rounds; at 18 it becomes 34, before the national cup and international windows. From my experience covering V-League matches across several seasons, Vietnamese clubs have never suffered from a shortage of fixtures — they suffer from a shortage of money, of compliant pitches and of medical staff. Eight extra rounds without matching infrastructure push the load straight into players' knees.

The personnel block is explicit: at least 20 staff trained in foreign languages, governance and technical affairs from 2027; a push for 5-10 Vietnamese to be employed or appointed on a regular basis at AFF, AFC or FIFA by 2030; focused investment in 10-20 promising referees and assistant referees. This is the cheapest and most feasible part of the whole programme — training an official costs a few hundred million dong, the package totals under 10 billion, and the return in organisational capacity is far higher than buying another foreign striker. The women's plan, an 8-10 team system with V-League clubs encouraged to set up, link with or sponsor women's sides, points the same way: the national team has reached a World Cup while the domestic league sits at seven or eight teams on thin payrolls.

The counterintuitive part is the distribution mechanism. The 3 billion VND per V-League club is spread evenly, regardless of whether a club runs an accredited academy, fields a women's team or owes wages. In 2026, as a first-year economics student, I cross-checked the published accounts of a First Division club that received 12.4 billion VND a year in sponsorship while owing players four months of wages and 2.8 billion VND in social insurance. I turned every page of the funding file and every page smelled. The lesson fits in one line: a grant must carry conditions — published accounts, wages paid in full, a youth team maintained. Without those three clauses, the money travels the old road.

The definition of an “eligible provincial federation” is also missing. Does eligible mean having a pitch, a grassroots league, audited accounts, or simply submitting an application? In a programme built on oversight, the vaguest clause is usually the most exploited one.

Thuy's programme has a rare strength: it bets on self-reliance and it dares to name years. I do not write from emotion. I write from minutes, bank statements and the things people try to hide. There are no minutes to compare this programme against yet, but there is enough material to hold it to account four years from now.

What is worth asking for is a four-page annex: eligibility criteria written as testable lines, a quarterly disbursement schedule, the name of an independent auditor, and a public tracker any VFF member can open. Financial self-reliance is the right goal, but it only holds when every dong raised arrives with an invoice attached and someone from outside is watching.