V.League Transfer Market: The Money Flows and the Game of Vietnamese Football

The dawn in Ulsan never lies. It wakes up on time, has precisely the right orange color, and never promises a day other than the one it is giving. I have watched those dawns for over twenty years living in Korea, and when I think of Vietnamese football, I see a similar light: the V.League also never lies about its own people — only those holding the pen try to coat it in a flashy veneer. There are phone calls that last only three minutes, but they change an entire summer. Last November, a friend who plays in the V.League called me at four in the morning. He did not talk about contracts or signing bonuses. He said: "Brother Khoa, I just found out I was being sold to another club while having breakfast with my wife. They called me, not my agent." Three minutes, one phone call, and a family's entire summer was turned upside down. I stayed silent because I understand that modern football runs on money, but the sunrise call runs on trust. That story is almost a manifesto about Vietnamese football's transfer market. When fans look at a contract, they see a number; but I, a market commentator who has followed football for fifty years, see the sleepless nights behind it. A V.League player's contract is not just a piece of paper committing to professional performance — it is a commitment between a local business and a family — and when that business hits trouble, football collapses before anyone can speak of trust. I want to write about this not because a big transfer is imminent. I write because the V.League transfer market is in a special cycle. Look at what is happening: two of the six leading clubs changed coaches mid-season; a national team player suddenly terminated his contract to "rethink his future"; three young clubs applied for promotion to the V.League but failed to meet the league's media requirements. This is not a European-style crazy market with hundreds of billions of dong in transfer fees. This is a market with a special structure, where supply and demand are distorted by a single factor: personal relationships. I have spent 45 years observing the football industry, from local radio stations in 2026 to more than a decade hosting the Football Night program in Korea. In both places, I have never seen a transfer market where "sources" are stronger than "contracts" as in Vietnam. People call me to tell me about a deal before it is signed; they also call me to tell me that the deal fell apart because of an inexplicable meeting. The V.League has a player movement system unlike any football economy I know. It operates on the "prestige" and "honor" of club owners, not on buyout clauses or contract releases. And that is precisely what makes it both fascinating and fragile. Let's talk about money first. One of the biggest illusions of Vietnamese football fans is thinking that expensive transfers will arrive when there is a willing investor. They look at Thailand and Indonesia and see tens of billions of dong for a domestic player. They ask: when will my club spend big? But I have witnessed too many "big-spending" deals in Korea and Japan fall apart due to a lack of sustainable revenue foundations. The V.League is not short of cash. The V.League lacks a structure that makes spending money a sound decision. When I look at the V.League transfer table recently, I do not look at transfer fees. I look at wage bills and contract lengths. One club pays a domestic player 30 million dong a month, but only commits to a one-year contract. Another pays 40 million dong a month but with a vague bonus clause: "bonus based on performance." When I asked an agent about a promising young player: "Is your client guaranteed to be paid on time?" he replied frankly: "In Vietnam, the owner's word matters more than the contract." And that is where the dawn calls of Ulsan become a metaphor. I lived through Korean football in the 1990s — a time when large conglomerates ran clubs like a mobile advertising department. The K-League then had teams owned by Hyundai, LG, Samsung. There was plenty of money, but after a few years, the conglomerates realized that a championship trophy did not sell a single extra car. They gradually withdrew. The V.League is entering that same loop, but with one big difference: in Korea, conglomerates withdrew but left behind youth training systems and facilities as a legacy. In Vietnam, when someone withdraws money, they withdraw everything, even taking away the best players. But I am not writing to complain. I write to point out a fact: the V.League transfer market is shifting in an unexpected direction — the rise of a class of "versatile players" who belong to no fixed club. They are true free agents, able to sign three-month or six-month contracts with whichever club pays the highest salary. They do not want commitment. They want flexibility to exploit squad shortages mid-season. In a volatile market, belonging to no one means being able to choose anyone. I call this class "the monsoon winds" of Vietnamese football. They appear at the start of the season, sign short-term contracts, play like saviors for three or four months, then disappear. Fans never have time to love them. But for club managers, they are a financially rational solution in an environment where long-term contracts are a big risk. Let me tell you about a specific player. He plays as a central midfielder, once wore the shirt of one of the three biggest clubs in Ho Chi Minh City, and was called up to the national team three times. In 2026, after his mother passed away from cancer, he decided not to sign long-term contracts with anyone. He told me: "I want to be able to come home to my mother anytime. If my contract is three years, I cannot do that." Fans call him "the untameable genius." I call him "a product of a system that forces people to choose between filial duty and career." He embodies what is wrong and what is right in the V.League transfer market. I learned from my years as a commentator that players are human beings with lives more complex than what they show on the pitch. Son Heung-min was pelted with stones in 2026, and I learned to see people beyond public opinion. He covered 11.2 km in the 1-2 loss to Mexico — the most of any Korean player. But public opinion only looked at the scoreline and a performance without goals. They did not see twenty sprints, ten off-ball runs, and the frustrated head shakes when teammates passed the wrong way. I wrote a three-thousand-word analysis of that injustice, and it was shared fifteen thousand times. But what I remember most is not the numbers. It was the red maple leaves scattered around Nizhny Novgorod Stadium that afternoon. In the silence of a football culture that values honor, I understood that a writer's duty is not to condemn, but to explain. Applying that lesson to the V.League, I see a generation of talented players being misjudged. They are criticized for being "lazy in defense." They are criticized for "running little." But when I look at temperature data and match intensity, I see what public opinion does not: V.League players must play on poor-quality artificial turf in temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius. They must play two games in seven days in a country that is hot all year round. A V.League midfielder runs on average 9.5 km per match — about 1.2 km less than a K-League player. But when you factor in weather, pitch conditions, and schedule, that difference almost disappears. I am not saying the V.League has no problems. I am saying that attributing every failure to players' "attitude" is an intellectual laziness of analysts sitting in air-conditioned rooms. Look at how V.League clubs recruit foreign players. A painful truth is that most foreign players come to Vietnam after failing elsewhere in Southeast Asia. They arrive, sign three-month contracts, and are expected to be heroes. When they fail, people say they are unprofessional. But no one asks one simple question: who recruited them? The role of technical director barely exists in the V.League. Transfer decisions are usually in the hands of one or two people — often the team leader or the owner himself — made based on YouTube highlights and advice from foreign agents who know nothing about Vietnamese football. I still remember the 4 a.m. call in 2026 from a close source at Ulsan Hyundai about Lee Jong-ho secretly negotiating with a Middle Eastern club. I verified through three different channels before writing. My article reached 120,000 views in 24 hours, and Ulsan later confirmed the information. The V.League has no such verification culture. Here, rumors fly faster than the truth, and a player can be destroyed by an unverified post on social media. Modern football runs on money, but the dawn call runs on trust. I want to emphasize this because it is the biggest blind spot in how Vietnamese people think about the transfer market. They think a beautiful deal is one with a lot of money. In fact, a beautiful deal is one with honesty. When a club wants to recruit a player from another club, how it treats the current club and the player matters far more than the money on the negotiating table. I have seen deals collapse over one disrespectful sentence. I have also seen deals succeed because of three well-timed phone calls. Let me talk about an aspect rarely mentioned: the role of players' wives or girlfriends in the transfer process. In Korea, players often consult their partners before deciding to sign abroad. They care about their children's schools, hospital quality, and the Korean community where they are going. In Vietnam, I rarely see this mentioned in negotiations. Players are treated like cars to be taken to the right garage. But players are human, and an unhappy player will never perform at 100 percent. One of my close friends in Busan is a former Korean player who spent three years in Japan. He said his biggest cultural shock was not the language, but his wife being lonely for the first two years because she had no friends. By the third season, his wife said: "Let's go home." And he did. A talented player ended his overseas career not because of poor ability, but because the family ecosystem was not supported. I find this lesson extremely important for Vietnamese players about to go abroad. Fans see a contract; I see the sleepless nights behind it. I once followed a young player from a V.League club who signed a four-year contract with a big club. He was the idol of thousands of children. But three months later, he suffered a ligament injury and lost nearly a year recovering. The club kept him because they did not want to lose the transfer fee. But they also did not provide him with a proper rehabilitation specialist. He had to find one privately. When I wrote about this case, I realized the V.League has many good players, but the sports healthcare system is still very primitive. This is not tactics. It is labor market structure. I want to return to the topic of xG and data. Many believe modern football is driven by data and statistical analysis. I do not deny the value of data, but I have witnessed a harmful consequence: young technical directors, fresh out of school, stare at data tables of xG, PPDA, and forget that football is played by humans. In the empty summer of 2026, Kim Min-jae terminated a contract with a European club, and football stood still so we could reflect on whether data can predict a player's desire. Kim Min-jae could cancel a contract, but no one can cancel the trust I placed in him. Data never tells you about a player's heart. The V.League is the same. When I look at a new signing, my first question is not "how many goals does this player score per season," but "is this player loved by his teammates?" A loved player will run more, fight more, and sacrifice more. Conversely, a talented but isolated player can become a burden. I believe V.League clubs focus too much on figures and not enough on understanding player character. There is an event I will never forget. In August 2026, I was sitting in a hotel in Hanoi preparing for an interview with a sports newspaper when I received a message from a young player who had played for Vietnam U23: "Brother Khoa, the club just removed me from the match squad without any reason." It turned out the club wanted to sell him to raise funds, but he refused to move. So they struck his name from the squad. No explanation. No meeting. When I called the club manager, he said: "Players do not have the right to choose where they go. If he does not sign, he will not play. It is that simple." This is a mindset completely opposite to what I learned in Europe, and also opposite to what I witnessed in Korea. In Korea, a player unhappy with his contract can file a transfer request. In Vietnam, players are usually the weakest side. I write these things not to belittle Vietnamese football. I love Vietnamese football. I was born in Vietnam, and even after more than twenty years on Korean soil, my heart still races when the Vietnamese anthem plays before a match. I write because I believe the V.League transfer market deserves serious attention as a real market — with its supply-demand laws, market failures, and flaws requiring reform. So what is really happening in the V.League transfer market now? Let me sketch the big picture. First, the supply of domestic players is tightening. The youth cohorts at PVF, HAGL Arsenal, and SLNA — which produce the most talent — are neither large nor good enough to replace the aging soon-to-retire stars. In about three years, we will witness a double crisis: clubs will both fight to keep their few stars and face a shortage of domestic players to meet homegrown quotas. When supply is scarce, prices rise, creating fertile ground for agents. But also when prices rise, transparency decreases. Second, demand is distorted by the competition between local businesses. V.League football has no sustainable revenue formula. A club can spend 100 billion dong on wages in one season, with revenue from tickets, broadcast rights, and sponsorship covering only 20 percent. The remainder comes out of the owner's pocket. When businesses struggle, they cut football costs first. That explains why many players face unpaid wages and sudden squad removal, and why contracts are often shorter than reality. I can say the worst thing is not the lack of money. The worst thing is structural instability. A player signing a two-year contract does not know if his club will exist next year. Another signs a three-year contract but must accept that his salary can be halved if the club is relegated. In developed leagues like the K-League and J-League, such clauses exist but are controlled by federation regulations and supported by insurance or reserve funds. In Vietnam, players have almost no protection. They cannot form a real players' association to defend their rights. This makes them pawns on the chessboard of club owners. But I do not want to merely criticize. I want to point out what I believe is one of the keys to development: the emergence of competent agents. I have worked with agents in Korea, Europe, and Vietnam, and the difference is vast. In Vietnam, people call them "brokers" and that name says it all. A professional agent not only helps a player sign a better contract but also helps manage finances and plan a long-term career. In Korea, most young players must take a course in financial management and media skills before signing professional contracts. In Vietnam, such things barely exist. A young player first earning 20 million dong a month has no one teaching him how to save, invest, or even pay taxes. Players are often forced to choose between signing a long-term contract for immediate stability and keeping flexibility to wait for bigger opportunities. I have seen many young players sign long-term contracts, then suffer from lack of playing time. In an environment where coaching staff change constantly, a long-term contract does not guarantee professional stability. It only guarantees that the club can sell the player at a higher price. When a club keeps a player for his market value rather than because he is part of the playing plan, the transfer market becomes distorted. I remember a young player — call him M. — who played very well in the national U23 season. Right after the season, four V.League clubs contacted him. His agent wanted to drive up the price, so he told him not to sign with anyone for six months. As a result, M. lost half a year training alone, without high-level competition, and his form dropped noticeably. By the time he signed with a club for slightly more money, he could no longer meet the coach's fitness requirements and sat on the bench all season. With foresight, the agent should have advised him to sign a moderate short-term contract, continue playing regularly, and only leave the door open for a transfer next season. A transfer market is a long chess game, and many people in Vietnam play it like a video game, thinking only of the immediate button press. I also want to address the role of media. Sports journalism and fan pages play an enormous role in shaping a player's market value. But in Vietnam, many transfer news pages chase unverified rumors and publish numbers with no basis. I know cases where published transfer fees were three times the actual figure. This creates a paradox: the player thinks he is worth more, the parent club thinks it is sitting on a gold mine, and buying clubs are forced into exorbitant prices. When the deal falls apart, everyone blames each other, and the player suffers most. This brings me to a contrarian point: the V.League does not need more money; it needs transparency. When money is poured into an opaque system, it distorts the system further rather than improving it. Vietnamese clubs are like racing cars with powerful engines but terrible brakes. You can accelerate fast, but at the first corner, you fly off the track. The priority for investment should not be expensive foreign strikers, but youth development systems, data analysis departments, nutritionists, psychologists, and all the "small details" that modern football treats as foundations. Compare with Thai football. The Thai League may not have much more money than the V.League, but it is more stable. Thai clubs follow clearer governance norms, have long-term sponsorship contracts, media strategies, and stable ticketing systems. I visited BG Pathum United Stadium and Buriram United's complex. They did not just build a pitch; they built a sports complex with canteens, merchandise stores, and an environment where families can come to watch football on weekends. That is what Vietnamese football is missing: an ecosystem that makes attending matches a lasting habit rather than a rare event. Speaking of stadiums, I cannot ignore one of the most painful issues in the V.League transfer market: pitch quality directly affects player value. A fast player on good turf can be worth double the same player on a poor surface. Because when the pitch is bad, he cannot showcase his speed, cannot execute technical moves, and scouts perceive him as worse. I have witnessed this many times in Korea when teams played in old stadiums on poorly maintained natural grass. I often think about what I have witnessed in more than twenty years in Korea. The K-League has also had scandals, bad contracts, and owners withdrawing. But they built institutions strong enough to survive crises. They have a financial control system, regulations prohibiting clubs from owing players more than three months of wages, and a fund to support players in difficulty. In Vietnam, I do not see such institutions. And when you ask why not, the answer is often: "We are not there yet." How far must we go before protecting players becomes necessary? When a player is owed wages, has his name struck without reason, or is pressured into an unfavorable contract — that is when laws are needed. Football is a business, but it is also a human game. If we let money decide everything without fair rules, the game will collapse. I watched Korean football go through the match-fixing scandal of 2026, and the biggest lesson was: transparent governance, not money, is what keeps a football nation alive. After that scandal, the K-League underwent a major surgery on ethics and operational procedure. The V.League does not need to wait for a major scandal to change. Start with small changes. First, transfer contracts must be transparent. Not necessarily published in full, but there must be an independent body checking fairness. Second, a wage guarantee fund for players — a reserve fund to pay wages when clubs face financial trouble. Third, the role of player agents must be enhanced. They need licenses, and they must bear legal responsibility for the information they provide. I know some will say my proposals are too far-fetched for Vietnam's context. I respectfully disagree. What I propose is what European and East Asian football has done for thirty years. The V.League may be late, but it is not incapable. The longer reform is delayed, the more years the market will need to catch up. But there is one thing I believe absolutely: Vietnamese people love football in a very unique way. The atmosphere at My Dinh Stadium, Thong Nhat Stadium, Lach Tray Stadium when the home team scores cannot be faked. I have been to more than thirty countries and watched countless matches, but I have never seen fans' genuine passion like in Vietnam. That passion is the greatest resource of Vietnamese football. The question is how to turn that passion into sustainable revenue to nurture the transfer market. I remember an afternoon at Thong Nhat Stadium three years ago. It was nearly 40 degrees Celsius, but nearly twenty thousand people queued from three in the afternoon to enter. It was just a regular V.League match between Saigon FC and Hai Phong FC. No title was at stake. But the fans came as if to a festival. They brought flags, drums, and wore shirts with their favorite players' names. I sat in the stands and thought: if a country can generate such natural heat, the lack of infrastructure to turn that heat into money is only because we have not learned how. The answer, in my view, lies in building club brands and media products. V.League clubs do not understand the true value of broadcast rights. They sell broadcasting rights cheaply, or even pay broadcasters to be on air. Conversely, they fail to use social media professionally to engage fans and build players into idols. When a player has no image, his commercial value is nearly zero, which drags down his transfer value. I have seen how Korean clubs build player images. They have dedicated media teams, intimate interview programs, training videos, and behind-the-scenes content. They make fans feel close to players. That closeness creates affection, and affection creates loyalty — not only to the club but to individual players. When the player leaves, fans miss him but still follow his journey. That increases his market value. I also want to address a growing phenomenon in Southeast Asia: naturalized players. Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines are actively naturalizing players of descent to strengthen their squads. Some V.League clubs follow this path, but it generates controversy. I have my own view. Naturalization is not bad if done properly and if the player has genuine roots connected to the country. But mass naturalization for results will erode identity and opportunities for homegrown talent. A strong football nation cannot rely on naturalized players who do not speak the mother tongue. It must rely on a solid youth development foundation. The V.League should learn from Japan. The J-League is not closed to foreign players, but it sets clear limits to protect domestic players. It allows young Japanese players to compete in Europe while creating policies to bring back those who fail. This creates a human-resource cycle: young players go abroad, gain experience, return, and raise the league's quality. The V.League lacks this cycle. Very few Vietnamese players succeed abroad, and when they return in failure, they are seen as "damaged goods" even though the experience they gained could be invaluable. Let me tell you a story about a Vietnamese player who went abroad. He moved to Belgium at 23, highly touted. But after only six months, he returned due to a family matter. Sports pages reported he failed, that he could not meet professional demands. The truth was different: his mother was seriously ill, and he chose family over career. He never disclosed the real reason to protect his family's privacy. And irresponsible journalists turned him into a failure story. When I met him in Hanoi two years later, he smiled bitterly: "I know what they wrote about me, but I do not want to explain. To me, my mother is more important than everything." I tell that story because I want every sports journalist, blogger, and fan page admin to remember that behind every transfer rumor is a flesh-and-blood human being. An irresponsible article can ruin a young player's career. A false rumor can collapse a pending deal. I know because I have witnessed it many times. Returning to market structure, I want to discuss clubs' role in developing players. A transfer market can only grow healthily when clubs have long-term youth development strategies. A club that produces many good young players not only earns transfer revenue but also provides a stable supply, helping stabilize prices. Conversely, a club without a youth system must buy players from elsewhere at high prices, creating inflationary pressure. The V.League currently has a huge imbalance between clubs. Some invest well in academies like PVF (Vietnam Football Talent Development Fund), but some have no academy at all, relying on poaching from other clubs. This leads to a situation where rich clubs do not necessarily develop players; they simply wait and buy those already well-trained elsewhere. As a result, poorer clubs bear all development costs without fair compensation. I have one piece of advice for V.League clubs: invest in scouting and development, not just purchasing. A good scouting team can find cheap rough gems, and a good development system can turn them into polished jewels. Meanwhile, buying a good team only helps you acquire already-polished jewels at exorbitant prices. I also want to discuss the foreign player market in the V.League. The V.League allows each club to register three foreigners and one overseas Vietnamese player. This creates a big opportunity for Vietnamese-origin players living in Europe, the US, or Australia. But in reality, recruiting overseas Vietnamese is often unprofessional. Many clubs see them as cheap "products" without assessing real ability. There are cases of Vietnamese-origin players from the English fourth division being courted despite clearly lacking quality. When they fail, people blame "unprofessional overseas Vietnamese." In truth, the fault lies in undisciplined recruitment standards. V.League clubs need to build a standard system for evaluating player ability instead of relying on gut feeling. They need professional scouts, data on playing frequency, movement intensity, fitness, and playing environment. They need analysts who can read data and see beyond numbers. And they need patience. One of the V.League's problems is firing coaches too quickly. On average, a V.League head coach lasts about one year. That means playing philosophy and youth development methods lack consistency. A new coach often wants to buy new players and change the playing style, causing dressing-room upheaval. The transfer market directly bears the consequences of that instability. I remember when I was producing Football Night in Korea, I invited many head coaches to the show. They talked about football philosophy and long-term plans. But in the V.League, when I interview head coaches, they talk about the pressure to win the very first game. That pressure comes not from fans but from the club owner. And when an owner prioritizes immediate results, he will make purchases without long-term strategy. Fans may wonder: which V.League clubs are doing it right? I am quite impressed by some clubs' operations recently. They do not spend the most, but they have clear strategies. They are rejuvenating squads, giving young players opportunities, and being patient with coaches. Results do not come immediately, but after two or three seasons, they begin to reap rewards. Conversely, some clubs are trying to buy trophies by signing over-the-hill veterans, only to taste bitter failure. Paradoxically, sometimes spending less is an advantage. When there is little money for purchases, clubs must look inward and develop youth. When there is plenty of money, they are easily tempted to buy players who do not fit the team's style. I have seen too many "panic buys" in Europe and Korea, and I am starting to see the same in the V.League. I want to tell a story about a foreign player who came to the V.League at a very high price. He was expected to be a penalty-box killer, but after just three matches, people realized he could not adapt to the weather and the Vietnamese football environment. He had good technique, but he was unused to aggressive tackling, poor pitches, and the pressure from fans. After half a season, he left, and the club lost a lot of money plus precious time. This story repeats itself year after year in the V.League. V.League technical directors must be smarter in selecting foreigners. They should not only watch highlight reels, because highlights always lie. They need to watch full matches, how the player moves without the ball, his ability to take hits, and his attitude when the team is losing. But these things require time and professionalism — the two scarcest goods in Vietnamese football's transfer market. Returning to domestic players, what worries me most is the tendency to burn out gifted youngsters too early. They are thrown into the starting lineup at 18, play too much, and by age 22, they are exhausted or chronically injured. No country can develop football sustainably without a strategy to protect young talent. I have seen Japan's youth model — they are extremely careful about how many matches a young player plays per season, with dedicated recovery and physical development programs. The V.League needs a similar system. Giving young players opportunities is good, but there must be a plan. Young players need to play in lower divisions, need loan spells to gain experience. They need an environment where failure is not met with stones. They need mentors — experienced former players. That is the difference between a football nation with a future and one that merely circles in the present. I also want to address discipline. One reason Vietnamese players struggle abroad is a lack of lifestyle discipline. Not all — there are many very professional players. But some young players stay up late, play games, eat without control, and have no truly strict manager beside them. In Korea, young players live in club dorms with strict daily schedules and specific nutrition programs. In Vietnam, many clubs allow players to live freely outside. Young players are easily tempted by unhealthy pleasures. I do not want to blame the youth. I want to say clubs must take more responsibility in managing and educating players. A transfer contract's value lies not only in the money, but also in whether the player develops into a professional person. And I believe if clubs educate character well, their transfer market will be more sustainable. I want to return to Ulsan and those dawn calls. At 61, I still answer the phone at 4 a.m. — because Ulsan does not call to say goodnight. That is my way of speaking about alertness. The football transfer market is a game for alert people, those who know how to wait and observe. No one wins this game by being hasty. A few years ago, I had a young friend who was a technical director at a V.League club. He was full of enthusiasm, proposing a five-year long-term development plan to the board. The plan included building a small academy, scouting players from provinces, and being patient with young coaches. But the board rejected the plan. They said: "Five years is too long. We need results in two years." My young friend resigned after that meeting. He told me: "In Vietnam, everyone thinks short-term." Indeed, short-term thinking is the chronic disease of Vietnamese football. It appears everywhere: in appointing coaches, in buying players, in expecting results from the national team. But this disease is not incurable. It only needs patient people — managers willing to withstand pressure to do the right thing, supporters daring to trust the process over the outcome. I see many talented people in Vietnam in football data analysis. But they are being wasted. Clubs do not hire them, or if they do, it is merely for show. They sit at home writing blogs and making podcasts, while player purchase decisions still rely on "looking at each other to know if it fits." Once again, I do not disdain intuition. I value field experience. But intuition + data = sound decisions. Intuition without data = gambling. I have talked a lot about problems. Now, I want to talk about hope. I see change coming from the new generation of young players. They are different from my generation. They know foreign languages, they watch European football via streaming platforms, they self-learn from tactical analysis videos on YouTube. They understand nutrition and sports science; they know the value of taking care of their bodies. When I meet a 19-year-old player who talks about watching Pep Guardiola's videos and analyzing tactical formations, I see enormous hope. A new generation of players — more knowledgeable, better prepared mentally and physically — will push toward a more professional transfer market. They will demand clear contracts, know how to negotiate with agents, and dare to question unfavorable clauses. When players become smarter, the market is forced to become more transparent. But that change takes time. And during that time, some players will be hurt. Some families will be affected by unfair contracts. Some talents will be wasted by hasty decisions of careless managers. To minimize those harms, responsibility lies not only with the Vietnam Football Federation, not only with clubs, but with us — those who write and talk about football. We can choose to write careful analyses, verifying sources before publishing, instead of chasing rumors for clicks. We can choose to ask: "Is this contract really good for the player?" instead of only "How much is this contract worth?" We can choose to look at players with understanding instead of judgment. That is what I want to convey through this article. The V.League transfer market is not just a place where money changes hands. It is a mirror reflecting how we see people — the players — in this game. If we treat them as products, the market will operate like a marketplace. If we treat them as humans, the market will operate like a community. And I believe that, eventually, the transfer market of Vietnamese football will operate like a caring community — where every dawn call begins with a greeting of trust and ends with a handshake of respect. For now, I still wake up at four every morning. Not because Ulsan calls. But because I believe Vietnamese football deserves an honest storyteller, ready to look into the shadows and speak the truth. At 61, I still have enough strength to wait for that dawn — a transfer market where trust is never sold cheap. And when that happens, I will not need a 4 a.m. call to know. I will only look out the window, see the Ulsan dawn glowing, and smile. Because a good football nation, like an honest dawn, never lies.