Vietnamese soccer fan Tran Tien Dung should have been in the northeastern port city of Haiphong on Sunday to watch his team play at home.
Instead, he planned to travel hundreds of kilometers south to the neutral city of Hue to watch Haiphong Cement take on another northern club, a result of a crackdown intended to head off disturbances.
Incidents of fans throwing bottles, burning flares, hurling insults and fighting have multiplied in recent years at matches of Vietnam’s professional V-League.
Haiphong Cement were ordered to play on neutral turf for one match and to pay a fine of 25 million dong (US$1,348) after fans lit flares during a fixture in the capital last month, local media and club supporters said.
While cases of unrest cannot be compared to hooliganism in Europe, they have tended “to become somewhat systematic,” said Nguyen Lan Trung, vice-president of the Vietnam Football Federation.
The V-League has in recent years also faced allegations of corruption and match-fixing.
Livid Haiphong Cement supporters last year burned seats and newspapers in their home stadium after losing a match.
Last month, a Hanoi court issued suspended jail sentences against eight of the club’s fans for another incident in which they were accused of lighting flares and breaking the windows of police cars, a court official said.
Two years ago, a man died and at least 10 people were wounded when clashes erupted between hundreds of fans from Haiphong and another V-League team, state media reported at the time.
Haiphong fans are notorious in Vietnam for their aggressive behavior, but in recent years have not been the only supporters involved in unrest.
Vietnamese soccer, the country’s most popular sport, “is in the process of professionalizing” and matches are increasingly competitive, with spectators a “part of the game,” Trung said.
However, “it’s too much. Where is the line between enthusiasm and foolishness?” he asked, noting that 1,000 police officers had to be deployed for the roughly 20,000 spectators at Haiphong matches.
Outside Haiphong’s Lach Tray stadium, club supporters defended their behavior and criticized the penalty levied for the unrest.
“It’s absurd,” said Nguyen Van Minh, whose fellow fans call him “The Drum” for his stadium antics.
Dung said the penalty was “not good for the mindset of the players or for club revenues.”
He acknowledged that the Haiphong crowd was prone to shouting and yelling insults but called that “normal,” and alleged police had over-reacted.
In its efforts to address rowdy behavior, Trung said Vietnam was seeking inspiration from other leagues, notably in Europe. Working with police, the soccer federation says it wants to identify those few people who light flares and does not exclude the possibility of banning them from stadium.
Trung added that it was not only the fans that needed educating. Players and club officials had to set an example by respecting referees’ decisions so that “order on the field can have a similar effect in the stands,” he said.
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