VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnamese National Squad tasted the defeat on December 18 and has officially bowed out of the AFF Suzuki Cup. The defeat has not only disappointed the footballers and the Vietnamese people, but sponsors as well, because businessmen will not have the opportunities to popularize their brands with the national squad.

A senior executive of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group told VnExpress reporters that like other hundreds of football fans, he personally feels sad about the defeat of the national squad. As the representative of the sponsor, he well understands that the group will have less opportunities to promote its brand.

“However, this is something that all sponsors have to accept when they sponsor games,” he noted.

He went on to say that Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group owns a football squad itself and the group has sponsored many tournaments. Therefore it well understands the rules of the games.

Unlike Hoang Anh Gia Lai, MofiFone, the mobile service provider, remains a new name among football championship sponsors. At this year’s AFF Suzuki Cup, MobiFone not only sponsored the national squad, but also opened a booth right in the front of the My Dinh National Stadium. The booth attracted a lot of fans who dropped in before they entered the stadium to watch football matches. Of course, when the national squad was defeated, the opportunity to attract football fans to the booth and the opportunity of popularizing the MobiFone brand will be negatively affected.

However, a marketing manager of MobiFone said that when deciding to become a sponsor, MobiFone understood that in all cases, defeat or victory, it needed to be the fellow-traveler of national squad. “Of course, if the national squad went to the final and became the champion, sponsors will feel happier and more excited. However, everyone has to accept defeats. However, we will continue marching together with Vietnamese football team and football fans in upcoming sports events,” he said.

A source told VnExpress that though in the past, MobiFone rarely spent money to sponsor football events, the mobile service provider decided to jump on the bandwagon this year, because it has reasons to do that. MobiFone is trying to advertise for the slogan “bat song cam xuc” (catching the wave of feelings”, and this is the main reason that prompted MobiFone to allow the sponsorship.

The most important thing MobiFone aimed to when it decided to become the sponsor was to associate the brand with football feelings – the excitement in victory and grief in failure. Meanwhile, no one should expect victories in all competitions.

Among the biggest donors, VP Bank is the sponsor of awards: it will give two billion dong to the national squad if Vietnam becomes the champion, or one billion dong if the squad gains the silver medal. However, as the national squad was defeated, VP bank will not have to spend money. However, Nguyen Hung, VP Bank’s General Director said that VP Bank really wants to spend money. “No one wants to see the national squad suffer defeat,” he said.

Chief Coach Calisto apologized to football fans because the national squad could not protect the championship title.

Source: VnExpress