VFF Term 10 Election: The Finance Vice-Chairmanship Is Where Power Is Actually Divided

On 21 October, the candidate list for the leadership of the Vietnam Football Federation's term 10 was published. I read it once in a cafe in Marseille, a second time on the train back to Aix, and on the third reading I stopped at a detail most of that day's coverage skipped: Tran Quoc Tuan's name appears in two places, Nguyen Xuan Vu's in three. One man is nominated for chairman and simultaneously for the vice-chairmanship in charge of professional affairs. The other is nominated for chairman, for the finance and sponsorship vice-chairmanship, and for the communications and external relations vice-chairmanship. The statutes state plainly that each candidate contests one position only. That list is telling a story before any vote is cast. Read only the headline and the story is the chairman's race: three names, one four-year term, one incumbent and two challengers. But a football federation does not operate like a club. Power there does not sit in the highest chair; it sits in the chairs that decide money flows and technical direction. In the ballot of 21 October, those two chairs carry names quite different from the chairman's race. The structure of this election needs spelling out, because it explains why a list that looks administrative carries so many signals. The VFF term 10 congress is expected in late December 2026 or during January 2027. The electorate is 57 member organisations, comprising provincial federations and clubs. The chairman and vice-chairmen are elected by secret ballot, which means the nomination list does not determine the result. The executive committee has 31 candidates, 18 of them club-linked: 12 from V.League, 5 from the First Division, 1 from the Second Division. Two candidates are women. Before the list is finalised, dossiers must be vetted by state management agencies, specifically the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. And as of the publication date, nomination dossiers from some member organisations had not arrived, so the 3 - 8 - 31 figures can still change. The press-room door closes and I begin to hear the match more clearly. Years spent around training sessions and stadium corridors taught me that what gets announced and what gets decided usually sit in two different rooms. The first chair worth examining is the finance and sponsorship vice-chairmanship. Two names sit there: Nguyen Xuan Vu and Nguyen Duc Thuy. Two men, two entirely different kinds of capital, and the way each arrived on this list says a great deal about where Vietnamese football heads over the next four years. Nguyen Xuan Vu, born in 2026, is the relationship candidate. A long-serving member of a bank's board of directors, described as having wide cross-sector connections, he currently holds the communications and external relations vice-chairmanship from term 9 and also chairs the Vietnam Table Tennis Federation. A multi-sport profile, unusual among football federations. His value lies in what already exists: the network, the contacts, the familiar face among member organisations. Nguyen Duc Thuy, born in 2026, is the capital candidate. A construction and banking businessman, he was involved with Sai Gon Xuan Thanh from 2026 to 2026, a club later dissolved, and has been involved with Ninh Binh since 2026. At the start of the 2026-2026 season he transferred the Ninh Binh club chairmanship to his daughter, Nguyen Ngoc My Anh. Every contract begins on an evening when someone whispers into a telephone. The handover of a club chairmanship to a daughter is the same kind of move: not a simple family decision but the familiar clearing of ground by someone about to enter public office, separating personal holdings from the position he is about to hold in order to pre-empt conflict-of-interest questions. Anyone who has followed federation congresses in Southeast Asia recognises the pattern. The second chair, the professional affairs vice-chairmanship, is where the national team's fate is shaped directly. Three names are on it: Tran Anh Tu, Tran Quoc Tuan and Tran Huy Duc. Tran Anh Tu holds the post in term 9 and simultaneously chairs the board of VPF, the entity running the professional leagues. Keeping him preserves the interface between clubs and federation. Replacing him signals a governance reset. Tran Quoc Tuan contesting both the chairmanship and the professional affairs vice-chairmanship is a structural anomaly. It may be a fallback if the chairman vote goes the wrong way, or an intent to hold the technical portfolio in his own hands regardless of which seat he wins. For a man five years in charge and holding positions on the AFF Competitions Committee, at AFC and at FIFA, this is how someone who understands the value of each chair behaves. Based on my experience following V.League matches and training sessions across many seasons, one thing recurs: decisions on naturalised players, on fixture calendars, on foreign-player quotas are always made in rooms the spectators cannot see. Whoever holds the professional affairs chair is the person setting those decisions. That race matters far more to a 19-year-old in Hai Phong than the race for the chairmanship. The 31-candidate executive committee should be read with the same logic. Eighteen are club-linked, 12 of them from V.League. That balance means any reform agenda must pass the top-tier clubs first. The two women candidates are Nguyen Thi My Dung and Bui Thi Hien Luong; Dung's seat on the FIFA Disciplinary Committee is an external asset few federations in the region possess. There is one inconsistency worth recording on the published list. Nguyen Trung Kien is listed as the incumbent finance and sponsorship vice-chairman and as standing for re-election, while that same chair is listed with two other candidates. The most sensible reading is that the list is unfinished, exactly as the VFF acknowledged in stating that nomination dossiers had not all arrived. When a federation publishes an incomplete list, what it is actually publishing is the state of negotiations, not the outcome. Here is where what is told must be separated from what is measured. The story being told is generational renewal: one man born in 2026, one in 2026, one in 2026. Three markers ten years apart, enough to build an appealing tale of rejuvenation. But federation elections in Vietnam have never been decided by generational narrative. They are decided by bloc voting among provincial federations and clubs, who vote on relationships, interests and concrete commitments rather than on birth years. It should also be stated plainly: the claim that Nguyen Duc Thuy enjoys considerable confidence is the opinion of the author of the published list, unaccompanied by data. No poll, no delegate count, no bloc breakdown. In a secret ballot of 57 member organisations, such a sentence is narrative framing, not evidence. I have withdrawn enough congress predictions over the years to know that confidence is confirmed only when the count is done. The biggest risk of this term sits where nobody is currently looking. There is no public data on the VFF's financial position: broadcasting revenue, commercial revenue, operating costs, net debt. A new leadership may inherit obligations nobody has named. In professional football, a club is audited before it is sold; at federation level, that habit does not appear to have taken hold. One further layer draws little attention: the state vetting process is the most opaque step in the entire cycle, and the only step that can override the nominations of 57 member organisations. If a dossier is returned, the congress could slip past December 2026 or January 2027. Every season is a heartbeat, and I am only trying to catch the right beat — but here, the beat is set in another room. What I am watching for in the coming weeks is not the winner's name. I am watching to see which candidate publishes a concrete financial platform: a four-year revenue model, a share of spending committed to youth development, a commitment on broadcasting rights. A federation willing to publish numbers before election day is a federation ready to be judged on results rather than relationships. When one name agrees to speak in figures first, the ballots of the 57 member organisations will answer on their own.