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The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) was fined for failing to meet medical requirements in Group B of the second qualifying round of the AFC U17 Women's Championship in September 2023.
Group B of the qualifying round will be held at the Vietnam Youth Football Training Center (VYS) from September 20 to September 24, 2023. After 6 matches, the group rankings are Australia, Philippines, Vietnam and Bangladesh. This position causes Vietnam to miss the opportunity to participate in the final round, held in Indonesia in May 2024.
During the organization process, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) determined that VFF made two mistakes in the medical process, leading to a fine of 10,000 USD, equivalent to 250 million VND. This mistake occurred in 4 matches: Australia - Philippines, Bangladesh - Vietnam, Philippines - Bangladesh and Vietnam - Australia.
The first error was not to adequately equip the ambulance with advanced life support equipment, emergency medications and trained medical personnel. Article 70.2 of the AFC Competition Operations Manual lists “advanced life support equipment”, which includes defibrillators, oxygen masks, I/V infusion sets and emergency medications.
The second fault is not having adequate medical facilities with first aid equipment. The AFC Handbook stipulates in Article 71.1 that each stadium must have two fully equipped medical facilities to provide medical care to teams and AFC delegations.
“Complete” is defined by three items. Accordingly, the first medical room must be located near the playing field and the locker room to provide emergency treatment for seriously injured players. The second room must be located near the VIP stands to provide emergency medical services. Finally, the two rooms must be fully equipped with nine items, such as two examination tables, two sets of spinal and head braces, defibrillators, IV stands, oxygen, etc.
AFC informed VFF of the penalty at the end of September 2024, one year after the event, and warned that the penalty would be increased if the violation continued.
The AFC does not usually notify federations or clubs of organizational violations immediately, but imposes sanctions through match officials' reports. The federation or club usually has 30 days to settle the fine from the date of the disciplinary decision.
This is the first time the AFC has fined the VFF for medical work. Previously, in December 2022, the VFF was fined 5,000 USD for allowing unauthorized people into the technical area of Thailand and Taiwan in the 2022 AFC U17 qualifiers in Phu Tho.
In addition, VFF was mainly fined for fan disturbances, such as in the 2020 AFC U23 Championship qualifiers in Hanoi in 2019 (fined 39,500 USD for letting fans set off flares and throw foreign objects in two matches at My Dinh Stadium), in the 2018 ASIAD semi-finals (12,500 USD for fans setting off flares when Vietnam lost 1-3 to South Korea) and in the 2016 AFF Cup semi-final second leg (38,000 USD when fans threw rocks and broke the windows of the bus carrying Indonesia at My Dinh Stadium).
TH (according to VnExpress)
