VietNamNet Bridge – At its extraordinary meeting on December 22, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) Steering Board rejected its Secretary General Tran Quoc Tuan’s resignation. The board decided to fire coach Falko Goets, saying that he must take the blame for the U23 national team’s failure at the Southeast Asian Games 2011.
At the press briefing on the same day, VFF Chair Nguyen Trong Hy said that Tuan submitted his resignation for the failure of the U23 team at SEA Games. However, VFF Steering Board said that Tuan was not the reason of the failure.

“No country in the world removes the chief after the failure of a football team. The chief is only responsible for administrative management. The failure of the U23 team is related to technical issues. Secretary General is an official appointed by the General Department of Sports and Physical Training. We have not received any instruction from the department to withdraw Tuan from the VFF,” Hy said.

He added that 100 percent of the steering board’s members rejected Tuan’s resignation. “This is the collective will. It means that Tuan will be still VFF’s Secretary General. After this meeting, we will report to the General Department of Sports and Physical Training and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to make final decision about Tuan’s resignation”.

Hy confirmed that though the VFF Chair has the right to appoint and dismiss the Secretary General but he “could not contravene the collective will and the steering board.”

Tuan is not considered as the one who is at fault but as Hy’s statement, “someone must take responsibility for U23 Vietnam’s failure.” And coach Goetz is defined as that person.

“The blame must belong to the coach. The steering board agrees to dismiss Coach Falko Goetz. We will forward the proposal to the National Coaching Council. If the council approves, we will end our contract with Mr. Goetz,” Hy said.

At Eximbank and VFF Cup, the two pre-SEA Games tournaments, Goetz used all players he had. The coach, therefore, is blamed to be unable to build the best formation for U23 Vietnam. The team lacked fullbacks, strikers, but had abundant wingers. As a result, some players had to play at positions which were not their forte.

The German coach is also blamed to not develop an appropriate playing style for U23 Vietnam and used a wrong strategy in the semi-final game against Indonesia at SEA Games 2011.

Ha Hung