V.League: When the Money Doesn't Come from the Stands, but from the Parent Company's Boardroom

On the night of January 5, 2026, Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok was packed, and Vietnam had just completed its victory over Thailand to win the ASEAN Championship. The next morning, Hanoi took to the streets. But when I returned to my desk, what I opened was not the scoreline, but the financial records of V.League clubs.

Fourteen clubs in Vietnam's top division are entering the new season. Almost all of them operate at an annual loss, and most of that loss is covered by the money of a parent company or a wealthy individual. The Southeast Asian title is an achievement for an entire football nation, but it does not automatically convert into cash flow for the very clubs that made it happen.

Over many years in this profession, I have learned one thing: data is only the starting point; the real story lies in the forgotten numbers. In Vietnam, the most forgotten figure is the share of revenue that comes from the fans themselves.

Three legs of a chair and one load-bearing leg

In developed football nations, a club lives on three legs: broadcast rights, commercial revenue, and ticket sales. In England or Spain, broadcast rights make up most of the budget and are shared relatively evenly among clubs. In Vietnam, all three legs are thin.

V.League broadcast rights are managed centrally through the Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company (VPF), under the supervision of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF). The total value of the contract is low by regional standards, and the share returned to each club is not enough to cover a season. Ticket revenue depends on attendance, which swings sharply with form and with whether the club has a star in its squad.

The result is that the third leg — the owner's money — becomes the only leg strong enough to stand on. And when a club can only stand on one leg, it stands only as long as the owner wants to stand with it.

The four steps of a model

Over the past decade, the most common operating model for a V.League club can be summed up in four steps. A company or an individual takes over the club. They invest in a youth academy to create a domestic talent pipeline. They use those players as the backbone to compete for results. And when the books need balancing, they sell a few of the brightest names.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai is the clearest example. Their academy, partnered with France's JMG Academy, was once considered the best training ground in Vietnam. The first generation of players — Nguyen Cong Phuong, Nguyen Tuan Anh, Luong Xuan Truong, Nguyen Van Toan — were promoted to the first team in a media campaign without precedent. When that generation reached maturity, the club was forced to sell them off gradually. Cong Phuong went abroad to Mito HollyHock in Japan and then Incheon United in South Korea, before returning. With each departure and return, the player's commercial value eroded, while the club collected a cash sum that was not enough to change its operating structure.

The fundamental difference with Brazil — where I live and work — lies here. A Brazilian club like Flamengo or Palmeiras can sell a young player to Europe for tens of millions of euros, and that money is enough to reinvest in both the first team and the academy. In Vietnam, the player-export market is not yet large enough to generate a similar income stream. Most Vietnamese players spend their entire careers at home. Without a strong export market, clubs have no revenue source to offset operating losses other than the owner's money.

When contracts expire, transfer fees vanish

The domestic transfer market does not generate significant cash either. Most deals between V.League clubs take the form of free transfers when a player's contract expires. With no transfer fee, the selling club receives nothing, and the buying club pays nothing. This sounds good for the buyer, but it destroys the entire system's incentive to invest in players. Why should a club spend money developing a young player for eight years if, once he matures, he can leave for free?

This is a classic economic paradox: a contract has three thousand words, but the most important one is the clause no one reads. In Vietnam, the least-read clauses are contract length and automatic renewal. When contracts are too short or lack protective mechanisms, the developing club is always at a disadvantage in negotiations.

Running a proper academy is not cheap. A training ground like PVF or Viettel's academy needs coaching staff, facilities, nutrition, medical care, and competitive matches for hundreds of players across age groups. That investment can only be recouped in two ways: selling players, or using those players to win trophies and thereby attract sponsors. In Vietnam, both paths are precarious.

Viettel is an interesting case. Backed by a state-owned telecommunications group, the club has more stable resources than most rivals. Its academy has produced many national-team players. But even a giant like that cannot turn football into a profitable business line. Football here is a branding channel, not a profit channel.

Foreign players: money flowing out, not in

To compensate for squad quality, V.League clubs spend on foreign players. Each team is allowed to register a certain number of foreigners, and these forwards usually earn the highest salaries in the squad. But this is money flowing abroad, creating no asset for Vietnamese football. When the contract ends, the foreign player leaves, and the club must find a new one, pay another signing bonus, and start over.

Some clubs try another route: naturalizing foreign players to strengthen the domestic core. This solves the short-term problem of squad quality, but it does not solve the long-term problem of revenue. A naturalized player still draws a salary, still consumes the budget, and still creates no transfer value when he retires.

In continental competition, Vietnamese representatives usually exit early. This goes beyond the technical question. A place in the AFC Champions League or AFC Cup brings prize money and home-ticket revenue, but to go far, a club needs to invest in a squad of a higher caliber — which the current financial structure does not allow.

Passionate fans, cold revenue

Vietnamese fans are famously passionate. When the national team plays, the streets are packed, and millions watch on television. But that love has not yet been converted into revenue for domestic clubs. Average V.League attendance is far lower than in the Thai League or J.League. There are many reasons: an unattractive schedule, uneven match quality, and most importantly, fans who love the national team more than they love their clubs.

This is a huge commercial gap. A football nation with tens of millions of viewers that cannot sell tickets, cannot sell shirts, and cannot sell broadcast rights at a proportionate price. That gap will not fill itself. It needs a professional marketing system, a stable schedule, and clubs governed like real businesses rather than like an owner's media project.

The paradox of a strong national team and weak clubs

Vietnam's national team has enjoyed a rare decade of success. Under coach Park Hang-seo, the team reached the quarterfinals of the 2026 Asian Cup, won the 2026 AFF Cup, and took two SEA Games gold medals. Then came the controversial Philippe Troussier period, followed by Kim Sang-sik, who brought the team back to the top of Southeast Asia in the tournament at the start of 2026.

But the national team's success was not built on a solid club foundation. It was built on a small group of talented players, mostly developed by a few good academies, and guided by capable foreign coaches. This is a sharp peak on a weak base — it produces results, but not an ecosystem.

This paradox has a direct effect on transfers. When the national team wins, the media value of its players soars. But that value does not convert into transfer value, because there is no market to price it. Star players get more advertising contracts, but their parent clubs gain nothing more from that fame.

Based on my experience watching V.League matches over many seasons, I have noticed a repeating pattern. A club invests heavily for two or three seasons, wins trophies, then shrinks its budget when the parent company runs into trouble. Key players leave. The team falls to mid-table. And another owner appears, promising a new cycle.

The blind spot in the mainstream story

The mainstream story Vietnamese media tells whenever a club dissolves or falls behind on wages is a story of poor management. They blame owners for a lack of vision, club leaders for reckless spending. That explanation sounds reasonable, but it overlooks one point: this model has operated steadily for more than two decades. If it were merely individual incompetence, it would have collapsed long ago.

The real blind spot lies elsewhere. Vietnamese football has not built a genuine transfer market — one where player ownership is clearly established, contracts are strictly enforced, and transfer fees become a legitimate revenue stream. Without those three things, every club is forced to live on the goodwill of one individual. And goodwill cannot be entered on a balance sheet.

People look at the price tag; I look at the room where they whisper. In Vietnam, that room is usually empty. No one negotiates a transfer fee, because there is no transfer fee to negotiate. What is missing is not money. What is missing is the institution that turns a player into a tradable asset.

I do not believe in luck; I believe in timing that has been arranged. But I also learned from Russia 2026 that every script collapses when it meets the pitch. If a V.League club is suddenly taken over by a large conglomerate and pours money into its academy, the story could turn faster than any model predicts.

What to watch next season

What is worth watching next season is not who wins the title. What is worth watching is whether VPF and VFF can push through a more transparent mechanism for player contracts and training compensation. If they can, money will start flowing to the right place. If they cannot, each new season will be just another loop: a new owner, a new academy, and a new loss recorded in the books of a parent company.