VietNamNet Bridge – An official of the Vietnam Professional Football JSC (VPF) said that four V-League referees are doubted of taking bribes from a club. The incident occurred in late April and is now being investigated.

The names of referees were not disclosed yet but according to some sources, the referees are in the same locality and after the incident they were all suspended in the past four rounds of the V-League.

A source revealed that the incident was discovered because of the conflict among the referees. The amount of bribes is reported to be approximately VND100 million ($5,000).

The referee council wanted to deal with this case secretly to not adversely affect the reputation of referees, but the bribe was big so they could not do that. In 2005, nearly a dozen of referees went to court and sentenced to prison for bribery of a few million dong.

Nam Nguyen