On May 13, the Vietnam Sports Administration issued a document allowing the professional soccer tournaments in Vietnam to return. On the same day, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) also decided to let the Vietnamese soccer tournaments roll back nationwide.
The Vietnam national soccer championship will return on June 5.
Judging from the current situation, the national professional soccer leagues, including the three major leagues V-League, Vietnam National Football Cup, and the First Division, will need a minimum of 145 days to complete. With a view of ending the season by October 31, 2002, however, the VFF and Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company (VPF) made a proposal related to changing the competition format which was agreed to by 14 out of 15 members of the executive committee.
More specifically, V-League will complete the first leg of the tournament, including 13 matches, two of which have been played. The results of the 13 matches will be used to identify the 2 groups which are the upper group (8 teams) and the lower group (6 teams). V-League 2020 is expected to return on June 5. However, the possibility of return still depends on how the situation evolves. In each match, teams are allowed to have five substitutes according to international rules.
Each team from the upper group will play 7 matches to compete for the championship, while each from the lower group will play 5 matches to avoid relegation. In this season, there will be only one relegation slot instead of 1.5 as last season.
Similarly, in the First Division, there is only one team that will be promoted directly. 12 teams in the First Division will also play the first leg of the tournament and will be divided into two groups of six to compete for promotion and avoid relegation. The 2020 Second Division will see three teams relegated so that the number of teams playing in the First Division will be equal to the number of teams playing in V-League.
Even though it has been agreed on the return of the soccer tournaments, the teams have yet to finalize the decision on whether to keep the matches open to spectators. The representative of VFF said that such a decision would be made by the local Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control and would be based on the local situation.
VFF will provide the provinces and cities with guidance for each stadium, more specifically on the number of spectators allowed and method of maintaining social distancing if such a decision were made.
Hoang Vinh