The inaugural Nexus Game Night saw nearly 400 fans pack out Nexus Square to attend a screening of the El Clasico FC. Barcelona - Real Madrid LaLiga match. Despite windy weather, fans showed up to passionately cheer for their teams.
Vietnam’s passion for football is well and truly on the rise. The 2024 ASEAN Cup victory saw people flood the streets in celebration across the country. Since colonial times, football has been the country’s favourite sport. Despite setbacks during Japanese, French and American occupation resulting in a loss of sporting history, Vietnam’s appetite for football has remained and is growing year by year alongside the development of professional football.
The local V.League 1 remains popular amongst avid sports fans, with a reported 1 million total fans attending the 182 games played during the 2023-2024 season. International football however is the main draw. Competitions and games involving the national team are practically national holidays, with attendance in cafés, bars and public viewing ceremonies in the tens of millions. International football also enjoys popularity amongst fans, with up to 70% of football fans preferring to watch Premier League and Champions League matches over local V.League 1 fixtures according to a WCC survey.
This massive viewership for international football has attracted the attention of major European football leagues, such as La Liga. The premiere Spanish football federation, LaLiga has been operating in Vietnam since 2017. In honor of the inaugural NGN event, LaLiga’s Vietnam Delegate Pablo Casaos Llorens was present. I got the opportunity to discuss with him his vision for the future of Vietnamese football. The following is an excerpt from our conversation.
Are you collaborating with any local teams? LaLiga has opened an academy locally but what’s the situation with the V.League1 clubs?
We always believe that the local league must always be the first league. So we always position ourselves as the second league. Trying to always collaborate with the local federation and the local league, in this case it’s VPF, owned by VFF.
We work really closely and we have an MOU with them, and we’re trying to do as many things with VPF as we can: the president came to meet our president in Spain, and we’ve done a couple of coaching courses in Hanoi.
What’s your vision for the future of football in Vietnam ? Do you see local football becoming a major sport like it is in Europe, or do you think there’s more interest in international football?
The future in Vietnam, not just in football, but in everything is tricky because even though I’ve been here for just 2 years, I believe that Vietnam can only be changed by Vietnamese people. So we cannot come and change Vietnam, it’s impossible.
What we can do is be there to support them. I think there’s a bright future and there’s a lot of potential in Vietnam. It’s 100 million people here, and they’re crazy about football. You’ve seen, they won the Mitsubishi Electric ASEAN Cup, they went nuts. I’ve never seen that in my life. The passion for football here is amazing.
But, there are a lot of steps they need to take and become more professional. First, they need to identify which are the sources of revenue and make the competition sustainable. Secondly, they need to find a clear system of scouting and trying to identify talent because the country is massive and each region has talents but lacks connection.
For me, if you ask me what’s my dream and what’s the image of what I want to do, if I have time, is to create a real pathway for Vietnamese kids to have a chance in Spain. Obviously this is a fantasy, but we’re trying to go step by step. The academy is the first step, but still this thing goes slow and I hope eventually we can start making bigger steps.
The future for Vietnamese football is looking bright. International success, domestic growth and growing interest amongst the Vietnamese population for domestic and international competitions are a recipe for success. If the trajectory for football follows that of Vietnam’s economic development, Vietnam could be well on its way to becoming a global hub for football.