The million dollar relegation battle in Vleague
More money to spend on relegation battle than title race
A month ago, in the series about Why Vietnamese players don’t want to move abroad, I shared a bit about the source of income of Vietnamese players, one of which is the match bonus. In this newsletter, which is published at the time Vleague 2022 is coming to the final fixtures, I will go into the details of the huge cash flow into teams in the relegation battle and also share my opinion about their survival chance this season.
Of the puzzling things about Vietnamese football and Vleague, I'm sure there are many of them, the matchday bonus is perhaps the most sensitive and controversial one. Most of the information about bonuses comes from rumors on social networks or media, rarely do we see it shown in financial reports or official announcements from the club. Because the number of teams trying to avoid relegation is often more than the number of title challengers, the race at the bottom side of the table is often more intense than the race to becoming the champions. This leads to the fact that more money to spend on just surviving than actually achieving something.
This season, for the three teams of Nam Dinh, Sai Gon, and Ho Chi Minh City alone, the total amount of bonus promised for successfully avoiding relegation has exceeded 30 billion VND, more than 1 million USD, which is TEN times more than the prize that VPF gives to the champions of Vleague 2022. The other two names in the current Bottom Five, SHB Da Nang and Hong Linh Ha Tinh have not publicly announced any specific bonuses but I guess if their results do not improve in the next few matches, they're going to jump into the money race anyway. In terms of matchday bonuses alone, a regular starter in a bottom team can earn (much) more than a regular starter in the top three teams. Obviously, this is a paradox, but it’s the way football in Vietnam has been run for a long time and has received tacit agreement from all parties involved.
Now let's go through each team of Bottom Five and their bonus policy:
NAM DINH: 1.2 billion for an away win, 1 billion for a home win
At the present, Nam Dinh, perhaps, is the team in the happiest state of mind in the bottom half of the table. The new head coach has quickly shown his talent with 3 wins out of the last 5 matches. The players are in good spirits while Thien Truong stadium with its “Yellow Wall” army of supporters is still a huge advantage for them.
Trouble may only come next year when their 200 billion VND budget funded by Xuan Thien Group is running out. The standard annual budget of a Vleague team is roughly 60-70 billion VND, but if you want to compete for the title or, unfortunately, stuck in a relegation battle, the amount can be much larger than that. With the heavy spending recently, plus the ambition to attract big names next season, 200 billion VND is not enough for three seasons as promised. After achieving the goal of gaining support from the people and politicians of Nam Dinh province for their steel factory project, and more importantly, after realizing that Vietnamese football is an extremely expensive game with many unknown risks for its players, will Xuan Thien continue to pump more money? Kindly remind that the chairman of Xuan Thien group, Nguyen Xuan Thien, is the older brother of Nguyen Duc Thuy, a tycoon from “The Ninh Binh clan” who was famous for heavily investing in Sai Gon Xuan Thanh FC in 2011 and then abandoned it just three years later. It’s coincidental, right?
Ho Chi Minh City: 1 billion for a win, 3 billion extra when the survival mission accomplished
Sai Gon: 1 billion for a win, 0.5 billion for a draw
In the relegation battle, they are direct rivals. In fact, Sai Gon FC received a 2 billion VND (~82k USD) bonus for their 2-0 victory against Ho Chi Minh City in the derby early this month. However, there are quite a few things in common between these two teams, apart from the fact that they are based in Ho Chi Minh City. Both are sponsored by SCB, the nation’s fifth-largest commercial bank by assets. In the last few days, they have faced a bank run after the arrest of Van Thinh Phat conglomerate leaders who were believed to have ties to SCB.
There has been a rumor circulating that Ho Chi Minh City FC will be transferred to a new owner from next season after the recent troubles related to SCB and Van Thinh Phat. The impact of that event on Saigon FC seems to be softer because SCB is only one of their major sponsors. However, their current owner, Novagroup, is also rumored to be in legal trouble related to its real estate projects and recent bond issuance. This is a bad time for the real estate market, and the difficulty is predicted to continue until at least the end of 2023. It means a lot of football teams in Vietnam, which have been sponsored by many real estate companies, will also face financial difficulties, or at least no more spending spree, in the near future.
Back to football, both teams have changed coaches recently. Saigon FC added the former national icon Le Huynh Duc as technical director. It’s a bit strange that in recent games Le Huynh Duc has been more active in giving instructions from the dugout than head coach Phung Thanh Phuong. At the same time, Ho Chi Minh City welcomes Vu Tien Thanh, who only more than a year ago still took the helm at …Saigon FC. He is the fourth coach of the Red Battleships this season, a record no one wants to achieve. Financially, the club claimed to have 11 billion bonuses available in the bank account, 8 billion for the remaining 8 matches of the season, and 3 billion for successfully avoiding relegation. One billion of that was spent after a surprise away win over HAGL last weekend. Personally, I believe that HCMC's chance of survival is slightly higher than that of Saigon FC, but everything will only be decided in the final round.
Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh
Although never falling into the bottom two places on the table, and currently still having one more game in hand, Hong Linh Ha Tinh is still classified in the “danger zone” in the league by many experts. One of the biggest reasons is their strange silence in announcing the match bonus. With a team that has a slightly below-average squad, playing inconsistently throughout the season, giving bonuses is almost the best, and easiest, tool to change the current fate. It’s hard to say the owner of this team lacks money. Hoanh Son Group does not have strong branding outside the territory of Ha Tinh province but receives stable revenue. In Vietnam, if you are able to bring one of the country’s “Four Pillars” to the inauguration of a factory built by your company, you are certainly not short of money. If your club's dinner is attended by the province mayor, you are certainly not short of money. And I guess if you own a Rolls-Royce Cullinan worth nearly 2 million USD, you are not short of money. Coach Nguyen Thanh Cong himself confirmed that his team is in good financial condition and we can also forget the conspiracy that Hong Linh Ha Tinh secretly rewarded the players without announcing it in the media. So what is the reason for this bonus-silence? In my opinion, the owner of Hong Linh Ha Tinh just considers football a temporary investment and does not want to turn on "all-in" mode in the first season. They will wait and see how this season goes on before writing more checks. Or in another possibility, their research shows that the probability of relegation is still low with two teams from Sai Gon being the main characters in the relegation battle so no need to have a panic spending spree.
Whatever the reason, this silence, in my opinion, is a significant disadvantage to Hong Linh Ha Tinh in the relegation race. Their players will feel jealous when their colleagues in other teams "swim in the money pool" after each win. And there’s a report about the fallout between Nguyen Thanh Cong and the board which could lead to his resignation in the near future. If it becomes true, people at Sai Gon might start the celebration.
SHB Đà Nẵng
This is the most unexpected name on this list. After the first half of this season, they were still ranked 5th on the table and this was also the first team to be able to beat Hanoi FC. In the first season when coach Phan Thanh Hung returned to lead his hometown team, he continues to put the trust in young players with three U20 players among their top 6 players with the most played minutes so far. But the explosive, enthusiasm of youth is often accompanied by instability. Plus the terrible recruitment of foreign players (they are sometimes not even coming in from the bench) and the injury of some key players, SHB Da Nang quickly fell down to the bottom of the table. It is difficult to imagine the prospect of the Han River team being relegated at the end of this season, even though the quality of their current squad is somewhat worse than Nam Dinh or Ho Chi Minh City FC. The CEO of the team has been replaced by a new man from SHB in the hope of lifting the players’ spirit after the recent consecutive defeats and trouble off the pitch related to youth development. However, as I mentioned above, the short-term solution to most problems arising in Vietnamese football is always money. And the match against Hong Linh Ha Tinh this weekend could be the start of that money-pump process.