Vietnam’s oldest football team - The Cong - has been sold to Thanh Hoa Club.

The Cong’s Bao Khanh midfielder (red).

Since The Cong’s dissolution by the Defence Ministry, Viettel has sponsored The Cong for the last several football seasons. Viettel also owns the Viettel Football Centre, which will participate in the First Division Tournament 2010. Viettel has subsequently decided to keep only one team and made plans to sell The Cong.

When Viettel announced its plan, HCM City club negotiated with Viettel but failed to reach an agreement. Hanoi ACB expressed its wish to buy both The Cong and its presence at V-League 2010 but could not afford to pay the set price of 80 billion dong for The Cong’s V-League 2010 seat and 20 players.

In late October, Thanh Hoa club, which has fallen from V-League to First Division, suddenly announced a contract with Viettel to take The Cong’s seat at V-League 2010. Accordingly, ten The Cong players will join Thanh Hoa for the next football season.

Many of The Cong’s players said that they didn’t want to play for Thanh Hoa even while Viettel transferred 20 Vietnamese and 2 foreign players to Thanh Hoa.

Thanh Hoa will pay only 20 billion dong, a very low price. The Cong’s famous players like Phuoc Tu, Anh Tuan and Bao Khanh are worth several billion dong in the football market. Other young players like Ngoc Duy, Quang Vinh, Khanh Lam and Cong Huy are very promising and many teams would like to have them.

Thanh Hoa will return to V-League 2010 and it will sell its seat at the First Division Tournament.

At the welcome ceremony, which attracted thousands of fans, many The Cong players looked very sad. Some admitted that they wanted to play for the Viettel Football Centre at the First Division tournament, not for Thanh Hoa at the V-League.

PV