Supporters play a very important part in any sport around the world. In Vietnam, there are many who not only watch and root for their athletes or teams, but they also voluntarily provide help and sponsorship to develop the sports they love.
Though a businessman, Tran Song Hai is more known for his devotion to football (soccer), the number one sport in the Southeast Asian country.
“I spend three to four hours every day watching football and doing national football fan association work, almost equal to the amount of time I use for my business and family,” Hai said.
Hai, 42, has accompanied Vietnamese players as a fan at nearly every competition since 1995, when he first watched local footballers win a silver medal at a Southeast Asian tournament.
He is now the vice chairman of the interim National Society of Vietnamese Football Fans.
He is most famous for sending 19 “Self-Respect” wine bottles to 19 members of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) in 2011 to imply that they should feel ashamed if they could not lead Vietnam’s football towards success.
Vietnam is very ambitious when it comes to football, but its national teams have been unable to live up to expectations for years. Blame for this has been placed on the incapability of VFF members.
Nobody can deny what the businessman has done for Vietnamese football, as evidenced by a weekly TV program he has sponsored since last year to create a platform for experts, fans, and sports reporters to discuss ways to develop the sport.
He supplied funds for the Voice of Ho Chi Minh City People radio station to broadcast live Vietnam’s games at a Southeast Asian competition for under-19 players in Indonesia in September of last year, and at the 2014 AFC U-19 Championship qualifying round in Malaysia the following month.
Hai even paid for all the costs for Nguyen Ngoc Hoai An, 28, when the latter was in Malaysia in October.
The vice chairman had met An by chance and learned that the young man, who owns a low-quality video camera, was there to record and air Vietnam’s Group F matches in the qualifying round live on YouTube.
Hai bought a US$10,000 video camera kit and will give it to An for use when Vietnam plays in other tournaments in the future.
“To me, supporters are all equal when they watch football,” Hai sai. “Watching the sport can also help you escape from the boring routine of your daily life.”
Twin brothers broadcast Vietnam’s games live on YouTube
When members of the Vietnam national under-19 football squad arrived at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City in October last year, An was welcomed just as warmly as the players, who had routed Taiwan 6-1 , Hong Kong 5-1, and Australia 5-1 to book a place in the 2014 AFC U-19 Championship in Myanmar in October this year.
An, a programmer, was applauded for recording and broadcasting Vietnam’s clashes with their rivals on YouTube, with the game against Australia attracting 100,000 viewers.
An and his twin brother began planning the broadcast almost a year earlier when they visited the Hoanh Anh Gia Lai – Arsenal JMG Academy in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai, players from which make up a majority of the current under-19 football squad.
They saw them play in training games in February at the academy, a private facility founded in 2007 by a Vietnamese property magnate with assistance from English Premier League club Arsenal, and quickly concluded that these young men would make a talented generation of players.
The two began uploading videos of the players’ training to the Internet after the visit, and then came up with the idea of broadcasting their official games live via YouTube.
Unable to fly to Indonesia for the above Southeast Asian competition for under-19 players due to their busy professional work schedule, the brothers were determined to go to Malaysia on their own dime to shoot the other games.
But only An could go because of limited funding, which would probably not have been a problem if they had met Hai, the businessman, beforehand.
An’s brother even went to Gia Lai to show Vietnam’s Malaysia games on a big screen, so that the younger players at Hoang Anh Gia Lai – Arsenal JMG Academy could see them.
“Vietnam will have one million basketball players one day”
Never having played basketball professionally, Nguyen Cong Hiep dared to quit his job at a software center in the Mekong Delta that offered him a good salary to pursue his passion for basketball.
Hiep, 26, had his first exposure to basketball in 2004 as an 11th grader at a school in Can Tho City, where he played with his friends to “kill time.”
He became crazy about the sport after playing it for quite a time.
The young man initiated the creation of a basketball team for his IT department when he was a student at Can Tho University.
In 2007 he set up a basketball forum which now has over 53,000 members, compared to just a few in its initial days.
He once organized a competition in Can Tho that attracted hundreds of amateur basketball players.
Hiep recently made a surprise move by quitting his job at the Can Tho University Software Center to dedicate more time to basketball.
The sport enthusiast then began working for the Saigon Heat, Vietnam’s first professional basketball club, as a media consultant, before leaving it and launching his “For 1 Million Vietnamese Basketball Players” project in 2012.
Hiep now runs the project’s “Run and Throw – Everyone Can Win against… Themselves!” program, which is very popular with many young people in Ho Chi Minh City.
Hundreds of people gather at a sports facility in the city’s District 2 four evenings a week to play basketball as part of the program.
This is the only program in Vietnam to grade and rank amateur basketball players similarly to the rankings of professional tennis players on the basis of their skills and performance.
“I want ‘Run and Throw – Everyone Can Win against… Themselves!’ to become a playground for those who crave basketball and for the purpose of finding promising players able to play professionally,” Hiep said.
Height is not really a problem for Vietnamese athletes, as “the Filipinos are not so tall, but they are the best in Southeast Asia and a pretty strong team at the Asian level,” according to him.
“Vietnam has many potential athletes, but they do not receive proper investment,” Hiep explained.
Given how far he has come with basketball, Hiep believes that “Vietnam will have one million basketball players one day,” even though the sport has only become popular here recently.
Đăng ký: VietNam News