Vietnam women's football has foreign players: A turning point for the World Cup

Young Vietnamese female players will benefit when domestic tournaments have foreign players competing - Photo: VFF

After the 8th Executive Committee Meeting of the 9th term (2022-2026) on the afternoon of March 27, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) decided to allow women's clubs to hire 1 foreign player to compete in the National Women's Football Championship and National Cup from the 2026 season.

This is a breakthrough decision and a necessary step forward for Vietnamese women's football to improve the quality of domestic tournaments, thereby continuing to achieve the goal of participating in the Women's World Cup for the first time in 2023.

Foreign players help improve the quality of domestic players

Currently, Vietnamese women's football has only been struggling with 8 teams competing with each other for the past 9 years after Son La became the latest name to participate in the national championship in 2016.

But in reality, the number of localities developing women's football is only 6, because the Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi women's clubs have 2 teams participating to help young female players have more opportunities to compete.

Despite the limited number of teams participating in the national tournament, Vietnamese women's football still made history by winning the right to participate in the 2023 Women's World Cup in New Zealand for the first time.

However, it must be admitted that the ticket to the Women's World Cup that year for the Vietnamese women's team was quite lucky, as Asia's top women's team, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, did not participate in the qualifying round. Otherwise, the competition would have been much fiercer.

Therefore, in order to improve their performance in the Asian arena and maintain their chances of participating in the Women's World Cup, Vietnamese women's football must further improve their domestic tournaments. This is to help female players improve their skills. And allowing women's clubs to hire a foreign player is the first step.

American center back Aubrey Goodwill (4) - one of two foreign players of Ho Chi Minh City Women's Club in the 2024-2025 AFC Champions League Women's - Photo: QUANG THINH

With foreign players, Vietnamese female players will have the opportunity to compete and improve their skills further instead of just competing domestically with each other, which makes it difficult to develop further.

Not to mention, Vietnamese women's football is showing the scene of "the bamboo is old but the young shoots have not yet grown". A 37-year-old Thuy Trang still playing well in domestic tournaments is admirable. But this hardly gives young female players a chance to really learn. While having many foreign players, that is really a professional leverage.

Improve competitiveness

Allowing clubs to hire a foreign player also makes the tournament more attractive and competitive, thereby further promoting the movement to develop more widely.

Ho Chi Minh City Women's Club, under the leadership of former player Doan Thi Kim Chi, has dominated the National Women's Football Championship since 2015. In 10 seasons, the team has won the championship 9 times, including 6 consecutive times from 2019 to 2024 despite a massive "brain drain".

If they were allowed to hire foreign players, many teams would be willing to do so to compete for the championship. Among them is the ambitious team Thai Nguyen T&T.

Last season, the tea team, after taking three stars from the Ho Chi Minh City Women's Club, goalkeeper Kim Thanh, center back Tran Thi Thu and midfielder Bich Thuy, ranked third with 30 points after 14 matches, only 3 points behind the Ho Chi Minh City Women's Club.

And soon, Thai Nguyen T&T Club is ready for an overthrow.

Professional women's football must have foreign players

Not only hiring foreign players to improve the level of domestic players, allowing the hiring of foreign players also helps Vietnamese women's football "integrate" with continental and world women's football, avoiding the passive situation like the current Ho Chi Minh City women's club when competing in the 2024-2025 AFC Champions League women.

Because the national championship does not allow hiring foreign players, and hiring long-term for a whole year is not cost-effective, the HCMC women's club can only sign short-term contracts of a few months with foreign players.

As a result, after the group stage, Ho Chi Minh City Club had to say goodbye to 3 foreign players and then in the quarter-finals hired 2 other foreign players of lower quality because the old players were "settled down" at other clubs.

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/bong-da-nu-viet-nam-co-ngoai-binh-buoc-chuyen-minh-cho-world-cup-20250328112026309.htm