Three Candidates Contest the VFF Chairman Seat: When Banking Capital Enters the Boardroom

On October 19, the nomination window for the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) Executive Committee for the 10th term (2026–2030) closed. Two days later, on October 21, the candidate list was published. Within those forty-eight hours, something went unrecorded in the minutes: the silence of an institution asking itself who it wants to become.

I have sat in rooms like that. Not VFF rooms — I have never had that honour — but rooms of the same kind, where a national sports federation must choose between the old and the new, between continuity and the hunger for change. And I learned one thing: in those rooms, people do not vote for a name. They vote for a fear.

Three names, three different fears

The VFF Chairmanship list for the 10th term contains three candidates. Tran Quoc Tuan — the incumbent Chairman, who has led the VFF through the 9th term (2026–2026). Nguyen Duc Thuy — commonly known as bau Thuy, born in 2026, a first-time entrant into football politics, with a background in construction and banking. And Nguyen Xuan Vu — the insider, incumbent Vice Chairman for Communications and Foreign Affairs.

These three names are not merely three personnel options. They are three different answers to the same question Vietnamese football has been asking itself for years: should this federation be a miniature state institution, a sports enterprise, or a professional civil organisation?

I follow Vietnamese football from the vantage point of a German immigrant working in Seoul, reporting for the Korean market. That means I see the V.League through eyes accustomed to the Bundesliga — where regional federations have a voice but not absolute power, where clubs own 50+1 and nobody is permitted to buy the league. When I look at the power structure of the VFF, what stops me is not the three Chairmanship names. It is the number six.

Six candidates for one seat, and one name in the middle

The Vice Chairman for Finance and Sponsorship Mobilisation seat has six candidates. Six. More than any other position on the Executive Committee. Among them is Nguyen Duc Thuy — who is simultaneously contesting the Chairmanship — and Vu Quoc Khanh, CEO of LPBank.

And here is the point the official coverage does not connect: LPBank is currently the main sponsor of the V.League.

I am not saying this to sow suspicion. I am saying it because it is a structural fact, and structural facts always have consequences. A bank sponsors the national league, simultaneously has its CEO contesting the Finance Vice Chairmanship, and simultaneously has a representative of related capital contesting the Chairmanship — that is not a conflict of interest in the sense of guilt. It is a conflict of interest in the sense of geometry: when one point lies on two lines, those two lines will intersect somewhere.

The right question is not "is bau Thuy greedy." The right question is: if he wins, who negotiates the V.League sponsorship contract with LPBank in the next term? And if he loses, will LPBank remain the V.League's main sponsor?

Those are two questions no candidate answered in the list published on October 21. The list contains only names. No platforms. No commitments. No statements on conflict of interest.

Two seats, one person, and a gap in the statutes

Tran Quoc Tuan is contesting both the Chairmanship and the Vice Chairmanship for Professional Affairs. Nguyen Duc Thuy is contesting both the Chairmanship and the Finance Vice Chairmanship.

I read that list several times. And what caught my attention was not that one person is contesting two seats — in many sports governance systems that is permitted and even sensible, as a way of ensuring continuity. What caught my attention was that nobody explained whether the VFF statutes permit it.

This is a small detail with weight. In an election where the outcome could be decided by a single vote, the validity of candidate eligibility is the foundation. If that foundation is questioned after the result is announced, the entire structure shakes.

I once witnessed something similar at a European federation I followed as a journalism student. A candidate won by a narrow margin, the opponent challenged candidate eligibility, and the federation took eighteen months to resolve it — eighteen months in which that country's youth football had nobody able to sign a final decision. I am not saying the VFF will follow that path. I am saying that the price of not clarifying the statutes in advance is eighteen months with nobody making decisions.

The Ministry gate, and four months of silence

According to published information, the candidate list must pass review by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism before being officially confirmed. The congress is expected to take place in January 2027.

From October 2026 to January 2027 is roughly fifteen months. Fifteen months for a list that has already been published.

In football, fifteen months is a generation of young players. It is two transfer windows. It is one World Cup qualifying cycle. It is enough time for a national team head coach's contract to expire and another coach to arrive — while the federation still has nobody to sign the appointment.

I am not saying that gap is wrong. I am saying that gap is a room, and inside that room, negotiations take place that nobody sees. That is the nature of sports politics, in Vietnam as in Germany, in Korea as in Brazil. But a mature sports journalism must state that the room exists.

The safest seat belongs to the least discussed person

Nguyen Xuan Vu is the only uncontested candidate. The Vice Chairmanship for Communications and Foreign Affairs belongs to him, regardless of who wins the Chairmanship.

In a three-way election, the certain winner is the one nobody notices. That is a rule I learned not from football but from journalism: when the whole room turns to watch two people arguing, look at the third person quietly taking notes.

I do not know whether Vu has ambitions beyond that. The article does not say. But I know one thing about power structures: in a football federation, the person in charge of communications and foreign affairs is the person who controls the narrative. And in a term where the VFF will face pressure from the AFC, FIFA, sponsors and public opinion, the person who controls the narrative is the one with the quietest power.

What a professional seat actually decides

I want to devote this section to the seat I consider most important but least discussed: the Vice Chairmanship for Professional Affairs.

Three candidates: Tran Huy Duc, a VFF Executive Committee member for the 9th term; Tran Quoc Tuan, the incumbent Chairman; and Tran Anh Tu, incumbent VFF Vice Chairman for the 9th term and simultaneously Chairman of the Board of the Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company (VPF).

This seat decides who appoints the national team head coach. It decides the youth development philosophy. It decides the naturalisation policy. It decides whether Vietnam continues to pursue a domestic-coach model or opens up to foreign coaches at youth level.

Those are decisions with ten-year consequences. And in the article about the candidate list, not one candidate said a single sentence about them.

I understand why. An article about a candidate list is an article about an event, not about ideas. But I also know that when a federation elects a professional affairs chief and nobody knows what that person thinks about the profession, the election is a confidence vote, not a leadership selection.

And Vietnamese football — with a generation of players entering their prime, with a V.League struggling with financial arithmetic, with a World Cup dream that has never gone out — does not need another confidence vote. Vietnamese football needs a leadership selection.

What I see from the outside

I was born in Germany. I grew up with German football — where a federation can be criticised openly on national television and nobody calls it treason. I work in Korea — where the K League publishes each club's financial report and nobody finds that strange.

When I look at the VFF, what I see is not a weak federation. What I see is a federation in transition — from an administrative institution to a modern sports governance organisation. And in transitions like that, there is always a moment when the organisation must choose: more transparent, or more discreet.

The list of three Chairmanship candidates is such a moment. Six candidates for the Finance seat is such a moment. LPBank sponsoring the league while having people in the leadership race is such a moment.

And what I want to say as a sports journalist — not a governance expert, not a political commentator — is this: those moments do not speak for themselves. They only become meaningful when someone asks the question.

Poetry in a list

I have written many pieces about falls on the pitch. About a long jumper crying in the mixed zone after three fouls. About an empty stadium in 2026 and players celebrating in silence.

I had never written about a candidate list.

But when I read the October 21 list, I recognised it as another story about a fall — not the fall of a player, but the fall of a way of running football. And like every other fall, it is a depression in the ground. A depression is where spring gathers.

Three candidates. Six candidates. Fifteen months. One congress in January 2027.

In that time, Vietnamese football will keep flowing — matches will still be played, young players will still train at five in the morning with nobody watching, fans will still sit in the stands and sing. Football does not wait for a committee. Football only waits for the right decision.

And I — a leaf in the forest — will sit here, taking notes, and wait to see whether that list becomes a page of history or just another sheet of paper in a federation's drawer.

The answer is not in the three names. The answer is in who will be the first to say, publicly, what they want Vietnamese football to become.

When the final whistle blows, only one thing is heard louder than every cheer: whether people still trust each other.