Directions, objectives & Missions of VFF Session IX (Term 2022 – 2026)

1. VFF continues investing in the development of youth football and the youth competition system; improving the quality of professional football tournaments, stabilize the number of clubs participating in the V.League and First Division, which firstly through investment to develop lower-tier leagues, including: Second Division, Third Division;

2. Increase in training, development and improvement of referees’ quality; carefully review qualified referees with development prospects for promotion in order to meet the higher requirements of professional football.

3. Implementing the club licensing and planning of clubs participating in professional football tournaments in 2023 and beyone; keep supporting professional football clubs to maintain and develop the implementation of club licensing matters in a more professional manner, ensuring both quantity and quality, as well as the stability and sustainability of the competition system of professional football leagues;

4. Disseminating information and organizing annual training for clubs/teams to register and transfer players in accordance with FIFA and VFF regulations; monitoring the implementation of these regulations by the club/team; organizing seminars on employment-related issues between the club/team and players, issues that often arise in dispute during the implementation of employment contracts, education contracts between parties and offering solution to minimize possible disputes.

5. Developing a plan and timeline for the implementation of Futsal club licensing activities and Women’s football club licensing activities; especially the plan to organize the national futsal tournament and the national women’s tournament with League format (home – away). This is a mandatory requirement for Vietnamese futsal clubs and women’s football clubs to attend AFC tournaments.

6. Gradually adjusting the competition format for some youth tournaments (U15, U17, etc.), women’s football and futsal in line with development trends and meet the AFC’s requirements; Research and prepare to organize futsal tournament for the U20 age group; Maintaining the annual National Women’s Futsal Championship.

7. Encourage provinces to develop women’s football, beach soccer, and futsal movements; calling for investment and thereby attracting many players of different ages to participate; organize football and Futsal tournaments (for boys, girls), in the high school system to support clubs in recruiting and searching for talents for professional training.

8. Continue promoting global integration, exchanges and cooperation with international football organizations and federations to seek support for national teams to gain more experiences; seek support of FIFA, AFC for the training of women’s football and youth football based on targeted programmes.

9. Strengthening the work of sports medicine, sports nutrition, applying advanced science and technology to assist in the recruitment, training and physical development of football athletes.

10. Improving performances of football teams at all levels, continue investing in the training of Youth Football, Women’s Football, and Futsal. Especially investing in young football talents to be the next generation for the national teams.

11. Coordinating with FIFA and AFC to continue organizing technical seminars and coaching courses for football coaches at all levels in accordance with the criteria of improving the abilities of coaches and meeting the qualification requirements in line with the club licensing regulations while participating in international FIFA/AFC tournaments. Paying attention to the quality of training of Coaches working in Vietnam. Then moving forward to apply the coaching certificate system in accordance with the model and standards of FIFA & AFC.

12. Strengthening the coordination and support from VFF to affiliated member; supporting local provinces without football federation and encourage them to establish a football federation in order to develop football and competition movements within the province and city as well as contribution to the nation; continue to encourage, develop and guide football clubs, who wish and are eligible to admit as a member of VFF in accordance with regulations.

13. Closely follow technical activities, football strategy and vision to 2030, World Cup goals in 2026-2030 in order to develop a targeted plan for marketing and sponsoring activities; Strengthening cooperation with professional sports media and marketing companies to further promote the image of Vietnamese football, building image of football associated with the community and attract revenue for Vietnamese football; strive to have sponsorship for the grassroot football competition.

II. DETAILED TARGETS

1. National Teams

1.1 Men’s football:

– National Team: 

+ Target top 10 teams in Asia region (setting up plans and timeline until 2030);

+ Target qualification to the AFC 3rd qualifying round for the FIFA World Cup 2026, try their best to qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and moving forward, being one of the teams participating in FIFA World Cup 2030 Final Round;

+ Qualification to the Quarterfinals stage of the AFC Asian Cup 2023; and also qualify for the Final round of the AFC Asian Cup 2027;

+ Qualify for the Final match of the AFF Cup in 2022/2024/2026; wins at least 01 championship.

– U23 National Team:

+ Qualification to the Final round and try their best to achieve best possible ranking at the AFC U23 Asian Cup 2024/2026;

+ Try to defend the Gold medals of the Men’s Football in SEA Games 2023/2025;

+ Youth National Teams regularly participate in the Final round of the AFC Youth Asian Cup. U17, U20 Teams shall fight for a spot in the Final Round of FIFA U17/U20 World Cup 2023/2025.

1.2 Women’s Football:

– National Team: 

+ To be in the top 6 of Asian women’s football teams.

+ Good preparation to compete with highest efficiency at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, thereby creating a favorable foundation for the new development of Vietnamese women’s football;

+ Become champion of the AFF Women’s Championship;

+ Try to defend the Gold medals of the Women’s Football in SEA Games 2023/2025;

+ Youth National Teams regularly participate in the Final round of the AFC Youth Asian Cup. U17, U20 Women’s teams shall fight for a spot in the Final Round of FIFA U17/U20 World Cup 2023/2025.

1.3 Fusal:

– Men’s Futsal National Team:

+ Maintain position in the top 3 of Southeast Asia region.

+ Qualification to the Final round of the AFC Futsal Asian Cup 2024/2026;

+ Fighting for a spot to the Final round of the FIFA Futsal World Cup 2024;

+ Fighting for a spot in the Final match of Futsal in SEA Games; as well as Final match of the AFF Futsal Championship.

– Women’s Futsal National Team:

+ Maintain position in the top 3 of Southeast Asia region, regularly participate in the AFC Women’s Futsal Asian Cup – Final Round.

2. Professional Football

– Target for 100% of football clubs to be eligible and licensed in order to participate in AFC tournaments; establishing model of professional football clubs in Vietnam, in which follows the model of developed countries in Asia;

– Implementing club licensing activities for clubs at the First Division championship;

– The facilities and floodlight system of the clubs are qualified, meeting the criteria of professional football;

– Improving the quality of refereeing; conducting research, completing the requirements as soon as possible to implement VAR technology according to FIFA standards, ensuring accuracy, assisting referees in operating, creating fairness for clubs in the competition.

3. Non-professional football

– To gradually adjust the competition format for youth tournaments from U15 to U21, futsal tournaments and national women’s tournaments in line with development trends;

– To implement the club licensing plan and timeline for Futsal Clubs and Women’s Football Clubs to meet the requirements of AFC;

– Ensure conditions for upgrading the pitches and relevant facilities to meet the requirements of football competition, training and development according to national standards;

– Implementing competition management, players’ data software to improve the quality of administration of tournaments.

4. Grassroot football

– Establising a system of grassroot football tournaments held annually with a large number of participating teams and players, with the direction and technical support of the Vietnam Football Federation.

– Coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training and relevant agencies and departments to have appropriate solutions for development of football in schools; organize tournaments for school on a regional and national scale.

5. Human resource development

– Improve the quality of officials, nominate additional qualified officers to join in international football organizations;

– Invest in and develop international-standard referees with high expertise and foreign languages skill ​in order ​to register as FIFA and AFC referees;

– Standardize football coach’s qualifications to meet AFC regulations and requirements.

6. Financial matters

– Enhancing the quality of the tournament, improving the competitiveness between the clubs, in order to attract and increase the value of television rights, and revenue at national professional football tournaments;

– Optimizing the exploitation of the brand value of national teams;

– Growth in marketing and sponsorship activities to increase by over 10% compared to the previous term. Specifically, the revenue from marketing and sponsorship activities in the session VIII (term of 2018-2022) reached VND 679,400,000,000, expected to reach over VND 750,000,000,000 in session IX (term 2022-2026).

III. KEY SOLUTIONS

1. Implementing and following up on missions according to the timeline on the basis of “Report on implementation of Vietnamese Football Development Strategy to 2020, vision to 2030, period 2012 – 2022”, “Project on development of Vietnamese football towards the World Cup 2026 – 2030”, “Project on development of grassroot football in the period of 2020 – 2030” and Project “Target program for human resources development (Players’ training) participating in the Final Round of the FIFA World Cup 2030, Asian Games 2027, 2031 and Olympic 2028, 2032” of the VFF Strategy Committee;
2. Proposing to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the General Department of Sports to consider the budget for the implementation of the Vietnam Football Development Strategy, in addition to the annual budget of the Culture, Sports and Tourism Sector to implement programs. The project, which is decisive to the development of football such as long-term training of young players abroad, training of experts, high-quality local managers, etc.
3. Proposing the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism based on Program 217/Ctr-BGDDT-BVHTTDL in coordination between the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism during the period of 2022-2026 signed on March 4, 2022; to create mechanism for the Departments of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the provinces, promoting the development of football in schools; establishing programmes to include football and Futsal into schools as optional subject for the physical education programme;
4. Developing a system of non-professional tournaments, professionalizing the organization of non-professional tournaments, especially the National Third- and Second-division competition to gradually create stability for the professional tournament system. There should be support mechanism to encourage companies/ agencies to organize youth tournaments.
5. Promote the exploitation of sponsorship from socialization sources, revenue from the brand value of the national teams and take advantage of the financial support of FIFA and AFC; Strengthen cooperation with developed football countries to improve the efficiency of training for the national team before participating in international tournaments.
6. Proposing to State management agencies to promulgate mechanisms and policies for investment in order to upgrade the facilities of local stadiums to meet the requirements of competition for Professional Football Club.
7. Research, amend, supplement and finalize the provisions of the Regulations on Professional Football and submit to the competent authorities in order to meet the requirements of innovation and development for professional football.
8. Developing plan of the domestic tournaments system in accordance with the activities schedule of the national teams, thereby ensuring good preparation of the national teams participating in the international tournaments.
9. Focus on training and developing young referees; completing regulations on referees management; coordination with FIFA and AFC in referee training and development.
10. Investing in experienced and qualified foreign experts in the fields of training, coaching, and sports medicine.
11. Developing professional communication strategy for each specific period, strengthening partnerships with trusted press agencies and media partners with high influence on the public to jointly build reputation for Vietnamese football and increase the value of Vietnamese football.