Since the economic downturn many chairmen of football clubs have fallen into debt to their coaches and players.
Chairman of The Vissai Ninh Binh Football club Hoang Manh Truong
Delayed payment to coaches and players has been a problem for some time in Vietnamese football circles. Football clubs have been compelled to limit their expenses.
Nguyen Van De, Chairman of Thanh Hoa Football Club, has made several explanations to the press about a two-month delay in payment to the team's coach, Trieu Quang Ha and players.
Normally football players look forward to payment for the season in one lump sum after it was over. But they discovered, on October 7, as the next season began, that none had received payment.
De was also said to have made cuts in payments for players.
“It’s true that our club has owed money to footballers for some months. We could not make the last payment because of the team's resting after the season. The money will be transferred into their accounts as soon as we foster their playing abilities," De shared.
Concerning the payment cut, De affirmed that the policy was only applied to players who violated team regulations or did not live up to their contract. He claimed that he had also paid bonuses to good coaches and players who performed well.
Many other football clubs are in the same situation.
The Vissai Ninh Binh football club has bad reputation for regularly deferred payments to both coach and players.
Over the past year, the club’s footballers have constantly worried about their future with the team. Still the chairman, Hoang Manh Truong, as he has admitted on several occasions, is willing to give up his investment. And he, like a number of other chairmen, run the team at a loss, trying their best to make up for it with other investments.
Young football club investor Nguyen Duc Thuy, famous for his extravagance, has got angry while being asked about deferred payment for players for the Sai Gon Xuan Thanh club.
“I’m trying everything possible to keep the thousands of employees of the team working. You might instead ask the question if this is not important,” Thuy commented.
Even well-known clubs like Hanoi T&T and SHB Da Nang, which were once known to handsomely pay their players, have had to defer payments.
The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), along with several coaches and footballers have said that club chairmen deserve a certain amount of sympathy during their economic hardship.
VFF Vice Chairman, Le Hung Dung, said that coaches and footballers who had high salaries should get used to the new economic realities in order to lessen the pressure on club chairmen.
“I think that all coaches and players should just learn to accept lower payment. Professional football clubs are businesses, and when business fall on difficult times they may not be able to pay their employees what they did in good times," Dung added.
