By Mark Baber
June 16 – Fresh from securing a third place finish in the South East Asian Games with a 5-0 victory over Indonesia, Vietnamese football has been hit by scandal as two officials are accused by a disgruntled ex-employee of receiving bribes from him and then sacking him.
Nguyen Van Chuong, formerly the acting director of the VFF’s Youth Football Training Center, has filed an accusation against VFF Chairman Le Hung Dung and his deputy, Tran Quoc Tuan accusing the two officials of accepting his bribes of $4,600 each but then going on to sack him from his job.
Chuong claims he gave the bribes in order to be transferred to the National Squads Department. He says he gave Dung the money hidden inside a wooden clock, whereas Dung says he refused the gift of the clock as he already had many of them, but Chuong left it at his house anyway, adding there was no money inside the clock.
The VFF chairman said “Those who make wrong accusations or slander against others will be punished by law. I have assigned Nguyen Nam Hung, head of the VFF’s Inspection Department, to make a report about the case and submit it to the VFF’s Executive Committee for instructions before reporting the case to competent state agencies,”
“After reaching a conclusion about Chuong’s allegations, the VFF will request that competent state agencies launch an investigation to handle the case in accordance with applicable regulations.”
Chuong told local media that “if there was evidence, police would arrest both the giver and taker of bribes. However, offering money or gifts to VFF officials is a thing of common sense.”
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