After Manchester United cancelled its trip to Indonesia, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) once again invited this world famous football club to Vietnam, but it did not succeed.

The success of the visit of the Brazilian Olympic squad in August 2008 urged VFF to seek big foreign football teams to bring to Vietnam, with MU and Milan as the top priority. VFF planned to invite MU to Vietnam to play a friendly match in summer 2009 but the federation couldn’t afford MU’s requirements, including Eur2 million for playing fees and others.

VFF’s hope to have MU in Vietnam this year was thought to have ended after MU announced its summer tour 2009, under which MU was to go to Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea and Hangzhou, China in July 2009.

However, because of a bomb attack at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Jakarta, where MU planned to stay as of July 20, MU cancelled its trip to Indonesia. Pro Events, a brokerage firm, informed VFF and the Thai Football Federation of the chance to replace Indonesia if they could satisfy MU’s requirements.

Accordingly, they would have had to pay fees of Eur2 million, provide special aircraft for a group of nearly 100 people besides luxurious accommodations and travel services. Pro Events is the exclusive seller of international TV broadcasting rights and advertisement services. All side-line events must have the approval of Pro Events. If Vietnam or Thailand wanted to meet these conditions, they would only have had the right to sell tickets to the event.

VFF asked Pro Events to cut the playing fees by half but Pro Events didn’t agree.

A senior official of VFF said the federation could only invite MU to Vietnam with the financial assistance of businesses. However, even if it had sufficient money, the preparation time would be too short.

VietNamNet/VNE