The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) will consider adding a new regulation to deduct points off dishonest teams committing match-fixing in the next season, its head Nguyen Trong Hy told Tuoi Tre.
Vietnam Football Federation chairman Nguyen Trong Hy
Hy said the match videotape, supervisors and referee supervisors would serve as testimonies for the organizing board to decide on the penalties against the dishonest clubs.
“Another crucial piece of testimony is the media and public reaction after the match,” he added.
Explaining the decisions by previous heads of the organizing board, such as Ngo Tu Ha and Tran Duy Ly, to slap point deduction penalties against the negatively-performing teams, he said they had based their decisions on the public outrage.
Hy also admitted that certain games in this year’s season were suspected of match-fixing, especially those in the final rounds.
Hence, V-League’s organizing board must make a clear report to decide what actually happened in this season, he said.
As for solutions to curb violence and match-fixing next season, he said certain new regulations should be added.
“We are considering targeting the fines for yellow and red cards at the players themselves and not the clubs, to reduce violence,” he said.
“Moreover, the organizing board could impose stricter fines on cases of foul play that the referees have missed or applied too lenient penalties after reviewing the videotapes.”
In response to some analysts blaming VFF for not giving adequate support to the clubs for training young footballers, he said it is the clubs’ duties to provide training for young football talents.
“VFF is only responsible for organizing tournaments for young players.”
V-League has so far seen two cases in which the organizing board handed point deduction penalty to the clubs with unenthusiastic playing attitude.
In 2001, Cong An Hanoi was deducted by 1 point and had to pay a VND50 million fine as they were suspected of playing perfunctorily to manipulate the match against Thua Thien - Hue.
A match-fixing game against Saigon Port in 2003 also cost The Cong three points and VND50 million.
In Serie A, the newly-promoted Atalanta club received a six-point deduction penalty for their attempt to fix matches to manipulate betting.
Serie B side Ascoli also suffered a six-point deduction for the coming season.