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