Vietnamese Football and the Challenge of Elevating V.League 1: When a National-Team Peak Is Not Enough to Sustain Momentum

Vietnamese Football and the Challenge of Elevating V.League 1: When a National-Team Peak Is Not Enough to Sustain Momentum

After a peak, the biggest question is no longer about winning

Vietnamese football has entered a new cycle with a familiar paradox. At national-team level, Vietnam under head coach Kim Sang-sik won the ASEAN Cup 2026, beating Thailand 5-3 on aggregate across the two-legged final played in January 2026. It was the third regional title in the history of Vietnamese football, after 2026 and 2026. Alongside striker Nguyen Xuan Son, senior figures such as Nguyen Quang Hai, Nguyen Tien Linh and Nguyen Hoang Duc continued to lead the squad. Yet behind that glow, a structural question remains unanswered: where does V.League 1, Vietnam's top division, actually stand on the continental football map?

That question is far from academic. A football nation can only sustain national-team success if its domestic league keeps producing players of sufficient quality, creates a competitive environment demanding enough to sharpen them, and operates transparently enough to attract long-term capital. If V.League 1 falls behind, national-team success will remain a series of isolated peaks, dependent on a few talented generations and a few favourable moments.

V.League 1: Small scale, heavy dependence

V.League 1 currently maintains a scale of 14 clubs. That figure is considered appropriate for existing infrastructure and resources, but it also sets clear limits on the number of matches per season. A season lasting roughly eight to nine months with just over twenty rounds means each player accumulates a relatively modest number of top-level minutes compared with leading regional competitions such as Thai League 1 or the J1 League.

In terms of revenue structure, most Vietnamese clubs still depend on two sources: commercial sponsorship and owner funding. Revenue from broadcasting rights, ticket sales and merchandise accounts for a small share. This produces two consequences. First, club budgets fluctuate sharply with the business cycle of their parent companies. Second, clubs struggle to build medium and long-term plans, because unstable income forces player contracts to be short and reactive.

The direct consequence is a domestic transfer market short on liquidity. Major deals mostly take the form of free transfers or ownership changes rather than transactions with clearly recorded transfer fees. When transfer values are not transparently recognised, clubs lose an important revenue channel and players lose the incentive to develop in order to raise their own market value.

Youth development: A bright spot that needs institutionalising

If there is one area where Vietnamese football has performed well for more than a decade, it is youth development. Academies such as the Hoang Anh Gia Lai - JMG Football Academy, the PVF Youth Football Training Centre, together with the development systems of Viettel and Hanoi FC, have produced a generation of players with markedly better technical and physical foundations than the previous era.

However, the output of these academies is still not fully exploited. Many young players, upon graduating, must compete with foreign signings for central positions, while wide roles are usually reserved for domestic players. This imbalance pushes some young talents to play abroad or to leave professional football early.

One solution frequently raised by experts is to apply a systematic incentive mechanism for fielding young players, rather than relying purely on administrative rules. For example, a club could be allowed to register an additional foreign-player slot if it meets a target for minutes played by under-21 players. Such a mechanism creates economic incentives rather than compulsion, and has been applied successfully in several Asian leagues.

Foreign players, naturalisation and the question of identity

The case of striker Nguyen Xuan Son is the clearest illustration of both the opportunity and the risk in a naturalisation strategy. The Brazil-born forward integrated quickly, became a key factor in the ASEAN Cup 2026 campaign and received strong support from fans. But reliance on one individual also exposed the risk: when Nguyen Xuan Son suffered a serious injury in the second leg of the final, Vietnam had to adjust its playing style at short notice.

Institutionally, naturalisation should sit inside an overall strategy, tied to specific positional needs and to the national team's development roadmap, rather than serving as an emergency fix. At the same time, the number of foreign-player registrations in V.League 1 needs careful consideration, because every foreign slot takes an opportunity away from a domestic player in the corresponding position.

Spectators, media and commercial value

Another paradox of V.League 1 is the gap between the level of interest and the level of conversion into revenue. National-team matches typically draw large crowds and strong media engagement, but that appeal does not translate proportionally into club matches. Many stadiums still show empty seats, particularly for midweek fixtures.

The causes fall into two groups. The first concerns the spectator experience: pitch quality, lighting conditions, in-stadium services and accessibility by public transport. The second concerns sporting quality: match tempo, the competitiveness of the league and how predictable the results are.

Improving the spectator experience is an investment problem, while improving sporting quality is a structural one. Both require long-term resources, and resources can only arrive if the league proves it can create sustainable value for sponsors and media partners.

Governance, licensing and transparency

Within the framework of the Asian Football Confederation, Vietnamese clubs competing in continental tournaments must meet a set of club licensing criteria covering sporting, infrastructure, personnel, legal and financial requirements. This is an important tool for raising governance standards, but its effectiveness depends on enforcement.

At national level, the Vietnam Football Federation and the Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company are responsible for organising and operating the league. Clearly separating responsibilities between the parties, alongside an independent monitoring mechanism, is a necessary condition for financial, transfer and disciplinary rules to be applied consistently.

Risks and recommendations

The biggest risk facing Vietnamese football today is systemic. If V.League 1 cannot increase the number of quality matches, cannot improve its revenue structure and cannot create a transparent mechanism for the transfer market, the gap with Asia's leading football nations will continue to widen.

Three recommendations can be considered. First, expand the league cautiously, tied to specific infrastructure and financial conditions. Second, build an incentive mechanism for fielding young players based on minutes-played targets. Third, publish basic club financial indicators, laying the foundation for a transparent transfer market.

Conclusion

The ASEAN Cup 2026 title was a deserved reward for a talented generation of players and a coaching staff that knew how to exploit its resources. But Vietnamese football cannot live forever on moments. The true value of a football nation lies in its domestic league, where players are tested every week, where fans attend regularly and where money moves under clear rules. Elevating V.League 1 is not a glamorous ambition; it is the survival condition that will determine whether the next peaks are anything more than an exception.