Vietnam has become more concerned in their isolated battle to fight against football betting since Asian bookmakers have included V-League matches, the top-tier football league in Vietnam, on their websites for online betting.

It should be noted that betting for the results of football matches and other sports is a legal job and ruled by laws and regulations in most of countries both in Asia and around the world, except Vietnam.

Matches of the first two rounds of V-League 2013 this month were included for online betting across the world, raising concerns as Vietnamese footballers can directly log in to the websites to bet on the matches they will play.

In case they are losing a bet, players may turn to fixing their own matches.

Not a new story

Actually, many footballers in the top leagues in Vietnam have been betting on football through websites managed by foreign bookmakers for years.

All they need to do is register for an account on a website and provide a credit card for payment. Police investigation are not easy as the identification info of the accounts is kept confidentially and the websites’ servers are located in nations where betting is legitimate.

Midfielder Tai Em of the Vietnamese national senior team said, “We’ve known for a long that some players bet in foreign nations, but we can’t know exactly who they are, after some players went bankrupt.”

“We asked them and they just said they were betting 2-3 million dong (VND2 million equals US$96) for fun,” he added.

Tran Tien Dai, managing director of Xuan Thanh Saigon FC, admitted he had terminated contracts with some players for ‘professional reasons’, which means betting.

They bet small sums initially, but after losing several times they are inclined to become a heavy addict in the hope of breaking even. And bankruptcy certainly occurs in some cases.

Tran Van Duong, the former managing director of Binh Duong FC, agreed with the idea that a player may easily fall out of their profession after getting involved in betting.

“Why can a number one center back of the national team of Vietnam who earned high monthly income fall in debts?” Duong asked. “He was not involved in a business, except online betting.”

Former manager Hoang Manh Truong, of Vissai Ninh Binh FC, added that Vietnamese players bet on both international and domestic matches.

“Then, some bookies came to my club to demand betting money from my players,” he confirmed.

Solutions?

It is difficult to prevent footballers from betting on the very games they will play in the V-League and other domestic leagues and tournaments, Vietnam Football Federation vice chairman Pham Ngoc Vien admitted.

“How do you know if a V-League player bets on V-League matches?”, a club manager asked.

“I hope that the plan to legalize football betting will soon be approved by the government and I hope it will be the base to govern betting in Vietnam,” said midfielder Tai Em.

“The V-League has improved its quality and it’s normal for bookmakers in Asia and the world to include the matches for betting,” Vien said. “I hope the legalization of betting will help push back betting by footballers.”

However, both managers Duong and Truong argued that it’s even more complicated to stop footballers from betting on the very games they will play.