Vietnam’s initiative to have foreign referees officiate ‘sensitive’ matches in the country’s top-flight football league has taken an ironic twist as one of the ‘guest referees’ from Thailand has been involved in a match-fixing scandal at home.

Thai referee Phumrin Khamruen is among 12 people accused of fixing domestic match results by the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) this week, according to the Bangkok Post.

The match-rigging scandal was reported by Thai media on Tuesday, only two days after Khamruen officiated the Hanoi - Quang Nam match in Round 25 of the 2017 V-League 1, putting the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), the country’s governing body of football, in an odd situation.

From the 2015 season, with support from the VFF, the VPF, the company that operates the V-League 1, started to hire foreign referees for matches it deemed important and susceptible to corruption.

The first international referee to take on the job in a V-League 1 match this year was Japan’s Jumpei Iida, who officiated the Thanh Hoa - Hanoi clash on October 15.

Following the scandal of referee Khamruen, the VFF has been criticized for its ‘wrong invitation,’ even though the match in question took place smoothly, with Hanoi earning a 1-0 home victory.

Hanoi now sit atop the V-League 1 table, followed by Quang Nam, which explains the importance of their Sunday clash, which was considered the ‘finale’ of the season. 

Unexpected incident

On Wednesday, the VFF offered its official response to critics, saying that it had no idea the Thai referee was under investigation for match-fixing when it invited him to supervise the V-League 1 match.

Citing the football league’s regulations, Nguyen Van Mui, head of the VFF referee division, said his unit and the VPF would hold discussions to decide on which games need to be officiated by foreign referees.

The final decisions will be reported to the VFF, which would contact its counterparts in other countries for their support.

Regarding the Hanoi - Quang Nam match, the VFF contacted FAT, asking it to introduce a FIFA-standard referee for the V-League 1 game, and the Thai federation recommended referee Khamruen.

“It is likely that at the time of recommendation, even the FAT had not known of anything abnormal about referee Khamruen,” Mui said.

The VPF’s general director Cao Van Chong said he was shocked to learn of the scandal of the Thai referee.

“I would never expect a FIFA-certified referee recommended by the FAT could be involved in a match-rigging scandal,” he said.

In fact, Khamruen fulfilled his duty in the V-League 1 match, which ended without any complaint about the referee.

Despite the scandal, the VPF will continue to have a foreign referee control the upcoming match between Than Quang Ninh and Hanoi in the league’s Round 26 this weekend.

The Vietnamese federation has contacted its Singaporean counterpart and was recommended to hire referee Nathan Chan Rong De, 27, for the match, according to Dan Tri (Intellectual) newswire.