V-League Transfer Market: The Undercurrent of Untitled Contracts

On a July afternoon, at the PVF youth football training center, I watched an 18-year-old boy sign his first professional contract. There were no cameras, no agents, no media handshakes. Just a piece of paper, a pen, and his mother standing silently at the corner of the stage. At the same time, in a meeting room on Hang Day Street, a negotiation for a foreign player, worth tens of billions of VND, was reaching its end. Two worlds exist within the same football nation, yet they never see each other. People call me a pitch poet. I only record the breath of the ball before it rolls. Today, I want to record the breath of a V-League transfer window—not the billion-dollar contracts, but the people behind them. The 2026/2026 V-League witnessed what is considered a record transfer window. The total estimated spending of 14 clubs exceeded 500 billion VND, 1.5 times higher than the previous season. But that number means nothing without looking at the market structure. The new VPF regulation—reducing the number of foreign players allowed on the pitch at the same time from three to two—created a tactical shock. Clubs were forced to restructure: some went for high-quality foreign players, others turned back to developing domestic talent. This leads to a paradox: the purchase price of domestic players tends to rise, but their value on the pitch is not reflected in transfer reports. The story of the team from the Port City is perhaps the clearest example. Hai Phong, with a limited budget, quietly recruited three young players from the First Division, all on free transfers. Those three men, after only six months, became the team's pillars. Meanwhile, a big club spent 60 billion VND on a foreigner from the Brazilian third division, who played four matches before suffering an injury and missing almost the entire season. It is not hard to guess who benefits. But the media, as usual, craves only expensive contracts. Based on my experience following matches over the past three seasons, I have noticed a pattern not recorded in transfer reports: smaller teams often receive less favorable treatment from referees when playing away at big clubs. This is not a conspiracy; it is stadium pressure. When thousands of fans roar, referees' decisions tend to lean toward the louder side. And when the referee leans toward the home team, the smaller team is pushed deeper, has fewer chances to approach the goal, and the value of young players becomes even harder to show. I want to look at the numbers more closely. According to data from domestic transfer statistics sites, the average fee for a top-valued domestic player in the V-League is around 5–8 billion VND. A mid-tier foreigner, who has just spent one season in the Thai League or Malaysia, often has a transfer fee of 15–20 billion VND. On the surface, this gap reflects quality. But if we look at minutes played, goal contribution, and chance creation, the difference is not proportional. A young Vietnamese player like Nguyen Thai Son, at age 18, has already played more than 1,500 minutes in the V-League and contributed to nearly 10 goals of his team. A 20-billion-VND foreigner has only 800 minutes and six goals. So, is that 20 billion buying a name or buying a performance? I am not denying the role of foreign players. They remain a lucky charm for teams lacking depth. But the market pricing mechanism is distorting real value. There is a dark zone in the V-League transfer system: the fees that are never disclosed. About 40% of this season's deals are free transfers, meaning there is no fee. Those contracts do not create any data pipeline in the press, and therefore they are ignored. But it is precisely there, where there is no money, that you see what football actually runs on: personnel judgment, coaching staff patience, and player desire. Another statistic caught my attention: the number of U21 players debuting in the V-League this season increased by 30% compared to last season, most of them from deep provinces like Ha Tinh, Thanh Hoa, and Hai Phong. They do not have money to buy foreigners, so they are forced to trust kids. And those kids answer with sweat. Meanwhile, big clubs like Cong An Ha Noi own high-quality squads but lack a well-trained succession force. They choose to buy ready-made young players from other teams, pushing the market value of those players up at a dizzying pace. Is this sustainable? Going deeper, I want to talk about the other side of the market. Money does not always buy stability. Look at a club in the middle of the table: they spend nearly half their budget on three foreigners, but when one of them gets injured, the whole tactical system collapses. Meanwhile, another club builds its play around a core of homegrown domestic players, with three foreigners only as supplementary pieces. The result shows that the second team is far more stable. Because the value of a collective does not come from the total market value of individuals, but from the connection between them. In football, one touch of the ball is an unfinished poem; but a team is a long poem written over many seasons. The media often calls this a vibrant market. But I see a dangerous polarization. The more money flows into rich clubs, the wider the gap between the top and bottom groups. The V-League is losing its competitiveness when a team can use a budget five times that of an opponent to buy a backup player. And on the flip side, poorer teams are forced to use young players earlier than planned, accepting risks in physical and psychological development. As a result, the national team may gain new faces, but the domestic league becomes a playground of wage disparity. In an instant, I remember empty stadiums during the pandemic. The cheers echo in my mind. The stadium is empty, but memory is never empty. And today, when the market is noisy, I see another ghost: the football of untitled contracts being pushed to the fringe. What transfer news bulletins never mention are the honest people who choose silence. There are players who refuse an offer from a big club to stay and serve their hometown team, because they understand that there they have the love of the stands and the respect of those around them. They may never have their names in the papers, but they are the quiet heartbeat of the league. A sports journalist like me, if I only chase blockbuster deals, will miss the rest of the game. Years ago, in a windowless Moscow room, I used to think that elite football was the only thing worth writing about. But Vietnamese football taught me a different lesson: anonymous people, free contracts, unreported touches—they all carry the weight of a final. Perhaps it is time we stop asking "how much is this player?" and ask "who will this player become?" Those untitled contracts—those 18-year-old boys signing pens in the shade, those free agents choosing a humble harbor—they are the underground river that keeps football from drying out. The ball rolls away, but the writer stays. I write to remember that in the race of money, there are still silent people, and their every touch is an unfinished poem, worthy of being heard.