600-1,000 Billion VND a Year: Reading VFF Presidential Candidate Nguyen Duc Thuy's Action Programme

The day the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) published its list of nominees for key positions and Executive Committee members for the 10th term (2027-2031), three names appeared in the presidential slot: Mr Tran Quoc Tuan, the incumbent president; Mr Nguyen Xuan Vu, vice president in charge of communications in the 9th term; and Mr Nguyen Duc Thuy, vice chairman of Sacombank's board and chairman of Ninh Binh FC.

Of the three files, Thuy's is the only one that builds almost its entire action programme around a single financial variable. The target is stated plainly: mobilise 600-1,000 billion VND per year starting in 2027, through socialisation and revenue from sponsorship, corporate partnerships, commercial rights, digital content and football services.

"From 2027, the programme targets mobilising socialised resources and developing revenue from sponsorship, corporate partnerships, commercial rights, digital content and football services, reaching 600-1,000 billion VND per year," Thuy wrote in his campaign programme.

Read side by side, the difference lies in the level of detail. One file sets direction. One file sets targets. One file sets targets along with a control mechanism and a breakdown of how the money reaches each beneficiary group. For someone who has spent a career watching youth development systems, that difference matters more than the names on the ballot, because it determines whether money reaches the layer that needs it or stops at the operational floor.

A budget figure does not produce players on its own. But it is the only thing that can be measured, audited and compared four years later. That is why Thuy's file deserves a slow read.

Four years, three files and one fixed benchmark

The 10th VFF term runs from 2027 to 2031. The congress elects the Executive Committee, the committee elects the key officers, and each candidate's action programme is the only publicly available commitment before the vote. After the congress, that document becomes the yardstick for four years, although it is rarely compared against outcomes in a systematic way.

The fixed benchmark sits elsewhere. State budget funding for football tasks stands at roughly 80 billion VND per year. That is the number every president has to work with, because it directly governs the national teams, the national youth training centres and part of the federation's operating machinery.

Thuy's target of 600-1,000 billion VND per year is 7.5 to 12.5 times that state budget. The gap says two things at once: ambition on scale, and near-total dependence on the market.

Vietnam's professional structure currently runs with 14 V-League clubs, a First Division of around 11-12 clubs and a women's national championship fluctuating between seven and eight teams. That is small for a country of Vietnam's population within the region, and it caps every revenue stream from rights, tickets and commercial inventory.

Vietnamese football has long lived on two separate money flows: state budget for national tasks, and private money from club owners. A third flow - commercial revenue generated by the league system itself - remains thin. Thuy's programme is essentially an attempt to shift weight from the first and second flows to the third.

Based on my experience following youth matches and V-League fixtures across several seasons, the conversations that matter happen on the concourse after the final whistle, when coaching staff linger to ask each other about next month's wages. Those conversations never make the papers, but they explain why a support package worth a few billion dong carries more psychological weight than its absolute value.

Breaking down the 600-1,000 billion

Five revenue groups are named: sponsorship, corporate partnerships, commercial rights, digital content and football services. They are not equally mature. Commercial rights and shirt, board and league sponsorship are the two groups with existing contracts, terms and identifiable partners. Corporate partnerships at federation level also have precedent.

The remaining two are the unknowns. Digital content and football services require data infrastructure, rights-selling systems, user accounts and distribution platforms. Without that infrastructure, they exist only on paper, and infrastructure cannot be purchased with a resolution.

The specificity of each revenue line determines whether 600-1,000 billion VND is a workable target or a handsome campaign figure.

The accompanying commitment is notable too: from 2027, 100 percent of operating and development costs under VFF responsibility will be covered by socialised and self-generated revenue, with no state budget used. That is a commitment that can be verified through annual financial reports, and also the most fragile one if the sponsorship cycle turns.

In parallel, the candidate wants to work with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Vietnam Sports Administration to review how the roughly 80 billion VND per year is allocated, prioritising sports with medal potential at the Asian Games and the Olympics.

That idea carries a layer rarely discussed. Men's football at Olympic and Asian Games level has long sat outside Vietnam's expected medal sports. If the allocation criterion shifts toward Asian Games and Olympic medal potential, the budget share for football could shrink, and the replacement would have to come from the very socialised revenue the programme is chasing. The two ideas are logically consistent, but they push risk toward the federation.

The arithmetic of the support packages

The most concrete part of the programme is the direct support packages: 2-3 billion VND per year for each eligible provincial federation; 3 billion VND for each V-League club, 2 billion for each First Division club and 2 billion for each women's club per season.

Run the current numbers. Fourteen V-League clubs at 3 billion gives 42 billion. Twelve First Division clubs at 2 billion gives 24 billion. Eight women's teams at 2 billion gives 16 billion. The three groups alone total 82 billion VND per season.

If the leagues expand as proposed - 16-18 V-League teams, 18-20 First Division teams, 8-10 women's teams - the arithmetic changes immediately. Eighteen V-League clubs at 3 billion gives 54 billion. Twenty First Division clubs at 2 billion gives 40 billion. Ten women's teams at 2 billion gives 20 billion. The total becomes 114 billion.

Add the provincial federations: with 63 provinces and cities, and roughly 30 eligible for the 2-3 billion band, the cost lands between 60 and 90 billion VND per year. Put together, direct support packages sit in the 140-200 billion VND range annually.

Against the 600-1,000 billion target, direct support accounts for roughly 20-30 percent. The remaining 400-800 billion would have to flow into categories described in less detail: VFF operations, national teams, youth development, refereeing, facilities and international cooperation.

Whether that 20-30 percent is a good sign or a warning depends on how the remaining 70-80 percent is allocated.

In most regional federation financial plans, operations and national team costs take the largest share. That is why club support packages tend to be incentives rather than lifelines, with real money going to World Cup qualifiers, SEA Games and Asian Cup cycles. If that pattern repeats, the 600-1,000 billion will mostly feed the machinery and the national teams, and youth talent will again receive the smallest slice.

Raw gems are not on the map; they sit in the dust of the running lane. I wrote that line after reviewing hundreds of youth matches, and it holds here: without an allocation explicitly stating the share for academies, training centres and U15, U17 and U19 competitions, money will find the easiest path, and the easiest path is always the one already built.

League expansion: the round-count calculation

League expansion is the most calculable part of the programme. The V-League runs 14 clubs over a double round-robin, 26 rounds. At 16 clubs it becomes 30 rounds. At 18 clubs it becomes 34.

In the First Division, 18 clubs produce 34 rounds and 20 clubs produce 38. Each added round is not just a matchday. It is a refereeing deployment, a stadium rental, a flight or a long coach trip, a medical check and a recovery session cut short.

For young players, this is the clearest benefit. Moving from 26 to 34 rounds adds eight rounds, nine matches each with 18 teams, roughly 72 extra top-flight matches per season. If each club reserves two matchday slots for under-21 players, the additional real minutes for that group could reach into the thousands per season.

It is also the riskiest part. Going from 14 to 18 teams requires four new entrants with adequate stadiums, finances, coaching structures and youth pipelines. Vietnam does not lack clubs wanting promotion. Vietnam lacks clubs able to stay up without cutting precisely the youth development that matters.

I have watched seasons where the team count changed between years, fixtures were compressed, and youth sides were pushed onto the pitch with patched-up line-ups because the calendar allowed nothing else. Those seasons did not produce players. They produced head-to-head records.

On women's football, the programme targets a system of 8-10 teams operating stably, encouraging V-League clubs to establish, link with or sponsor women's sides. That is structurally sound, since Vietnamese women's football has long relied on a small group of anchor clubs and local budgets.

What deserves attention here is the plan to connect academies, schools, clubs and localities into a continuous pathway combining competition, schooling and healthcare. In a system where most women's players leave the game before 25, schooling is not a side detail. It is a precondition for a wider talent pool.

On refereeing, the target is focused investment in 10-20 promising referees and assistant referees, raising their chances of appointment to major Asian matches. On staffing, at least 20 officials are to be trained in foreign languages, governance and technical operations from 2027, with a goal of 5-10 Vietnamese personnel recruited, appointed or regularly assigned at AFF, AFC and FIFA by 2030.

That cluster is small in number but large in structural meaning. A country with people inside AFC technical committees has a voice in meetings that decide calendars, qualifying formats and tournament slot allocations. Those decisions shape national team chances more than a single friendly.

Financial control is stated clearly: all mobilised resources must be used for their intended purpose, disclosed publicly, audited and subject to oversight by VFF members. That is easy to announce and hard to deliver, because it requires an oversight mechanism independent of the standing apparatus.

Three billion dong next to a club budget

A package of 3 billion VND per year for a V-League club sounds substantial in isolation. Set against a V-League club's actual operating budget, it is several times smaller. A professional club in Vietnam typically spends tens of billions of dong per season on player wages, coaching staff, training grounds, travel, medical care and recovery, and ambitious clubs spend more.

Three billion dong should therefore be read as a signal rather than a pillar. The signal has value: it confirms the federation treats clubs as partners in the value chain rather than administrative subordinates. But if the public misreads it as a lifeline, the effect reverses: clubs face less pressure to grow their own revenue, and the slow work of professionalising their accounting stalls.

Another blind spot lies in the eligibility conditions. The programme states amounts but not the criteria attached. Without tying support to specific indicators - under-21 players registered, youth team matches played, the share of home-developed players in the first team - the money will not change structure.

Age 53 taught me this: speed wins, but slowness sees. Here, seeing slowly means reading the conditions before reading the amount.

The risk of a target tied to a cycle

The 600-1,000 billion VND target has one characteristic worth flagging: it is tied to the sponsorship cycle. Football sponsorship deals typically run one to three years and are renewed season by season. A four-year term will pass through at least two such cycles, and no two cycles look alike.

In a strong economy, 1,000 billion sounds feasible. When a major partner withdraws, the target falls quickly and a four-year-old commitment becomes a reputational liability. That is why experienced federations set floors rather than ceilings and publish fallback scenarios.

A second risk sits inside the no-state-budget commitment itself. If state funding for football is genuinely reduced to prioritise Asian Games and Olympic medal sports, the federation loses part of its safety buffer precisely when it needs it most. The programme does not yet describe how that scenario would be handled.

One more point deserves scrutiny: league size and revenue size are interdependent, but not in the direction many assume. Expansion raises matches, costs and infrastructure needs. It raises revenue only if rights value and commercial value rise with it. Otherwise expansion means costs first, revenue later, with clubs absorbing the gap.

A data digger's judgement

I dig through data, but I excavate people. Placed beside the figures in this programme, that line reminds me what actually needs excavating.

The 600-1,000 billion VND target depends on three variables for its realism. First, the speed of conversion from shirt and league sponsorship into repeatable revenue such as rights and digital content. Second, the transparency of the allocation, clear enough for the public to know what share flows into youth development. Third, the ability to hold the support structure together when the sponsorship cycle turns down.

If all three cooperate, Vietnamese football could for the first time have a league system that funds itself, and academies with stable budgets that do not have to sell young players too early. If one turns against it, the four-year commitment will repeat a familiar loop: large targets, blurred allocation, late accounting.

Across the two most recent seasons I spent at the grounds with the highest concentration of young players, what I saw was not a shortage of money. What I saw was a shortage of continuity. A 19-year-old can play 14 matches in three months and then vanish from the first team for a season and a half, not through injury but because the club changed coach, changed policy, changed the way it spends.

The traveller's journey is not about finding the gem, but about understanding why the search is necessary. Vietnamese football is exactly there: the question is not whether the target is 600 or 1,000 billion dong, but why, four years from now, we will still be asking it.