VietNamNet Bridge – The UK’s Daily Record newspaper, on Monday, reported that the famous football club Manchester United (MU) signed a $6 million contract to go to Vietnam next summer.

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The Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), Le Hung Dung, said the contract with MU was negotiated by the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam. The VFF is only cooperating with the bank to organize the event. BIDV is the partner of the US financial and insurance group, AIG, which is MU’s major sponsor.

If this contract is really signed, this would be a historic football event in Vietnam because this will be the first time a club from the Barclays English Premier League, and such a famous football club like MU, would visit Vietnam.

According to the Daily Record, MU’s match in Vietnam (possibly against the Vietnamese national squad), will take place in Hanoi. This will be the last match of MU during its visit to Asia, after they go to Seoul (South Korea), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Hong Kong.

Speaking to the Daily Record, the MU spokesman said: ““Vietnam is one of the few places we have yet to visit since we started going global with our pre-season tours about 15 years ago. As such, there is definitely an appetite to visit there.”

According to some sources, as the summer 2009 will not have significant football events, like the World Cup finals or Euro, coach Ferguson may bring his best players to Vietnam, including superstars like C. Ronaldo, Rooney, and Berbatov.

Four months ago, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism instructed the VFF to combine with BIDV to develop a detailed plan to invite MU to Vietnam. According to initial anticipation, the pay for MU is approximately $2.5 million (as AFP and Reuters’ quotation of VFF Chairman Nguyen Trong Hy). As the pay is up to $6 million, advertising rates and royalties for broadcasting rights of the match between MU and the national squad would be very high.

In late July the VFF earned a profit of approximately VND 10 billion ($588,000) from the match between Olympic Brazil and the national squad in Hanoi. However, at that time VFF had to pay less than $1 million to the Brazilian team.

(Source: NLD, Daily Record)