Thong Nhat (Reunification) Stadium, home to three prominent clubs in Ho Chi Minh City, will likely receive fewer spectators next season as financial troubles have sent one of them to the lower league, and compromised the future of the others.

The unlucky team, the Ho Chi Minh City Soccer Club in the First Division, was relegated to the Second Division after the former league ended last weekend, mostly because they did not have enough funding to sign good players.

This is regarded as an irony as the club is based in the country’s biggest economic hub and managed by the local sports department and people’s committee.

Nguyen Chi Kien, the club chairman, was even reported to have sold his own cars to pay players’ salaries this season.

“Rough estimates show that we still owe the players several billion Vietnamese dong,” Kien said.

He added the club is now in default on stadium rent, meal fees, and travel expenses.

It is struggling to raise money to settle a US$20,000 debt it owes the current coach as well, Kien sighed.

The chairman admitted he is not sure when his club would make a comeback with all these money problems.

In the dark

The remaining two teams, N.Saigon and SGXT who both compete in the country’s top-flight V-League, appear to have no clue whether they will continue playing next season, which starts in January.

N.Saigon, backed by the HCMC-based Nam Viet Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Navibank), have been kept in the dark about their future since the outburst of rumors that Navibank would stop funding the club and sell it. Even Pham Cong Loc, its coach, does not know much about his bosses’ real plans for the club.

Many players are said to have started searching for new destinations before any official announcement is made.

Club chairman Nguyen Vinh Tho once confessed to Tuoi Tre newspaper in a recent interview that the current economic turmoil puts a negative effect on the bank’s investment in N.Saigon.

N.Saigon’s ‘acquaintances’ SGXT, sponsored by a multi-business group based in the northern province of Ninh Binh, are stuck in the same situation following allegations that the conglomerate would get rid of it.

Owners of the club seem to feel the pain from the current financial crisis as they were more frequently late in paying salaries during this season -- already finished last week -- and a reported lack of funds has prevented them from negotiating with outgoing key players.

V-League and the First Division are the two most important competitions in Vietnamese soccer, where businesses annually invest huge amounts of money to fund clubs.

Unlike professional clubs in Europe which can make money themselves, Vietnamese ones rely entirely on their sponsors for operating budgets.