Manchester City in Vietnam: A friendly for the guests, a big deal for their hosts

Manchester City are meeting some of their thousands of Vietnamese fans, but, writes Kim Megson, the match has attracted plenty of controversy, not least because of the price of the tickets

Manchester City players Marcos Lopes and David Silva join Saigon-Hanoi Bank general director Nguyen Van Le and City ambassador Mike Summerbee at a promotional event in Hanoi (EPA)

Today in Hanoi, players such as David Silva, Samir Nasri and Raheem Sterling will face lesser-known names Luong, Hoang and Hai as Manchester City play Vietnam. For City, it is just another friendly before the Premier League kicks off on 8 August. For Vietnam, it is the most expensive football fixture in the country’s history.

The game has been jointly organised by the Vietnam Football Federation and the Saigon-Hanoi Bank, which, if local reports are to be believed, is bankrolling the event to the tune of £1m. Tickets went on sale for as much as £50 – a Vietnamese record that has attracted some controversy.

“This price is far too high for most Vietnam fans,” says Tat Dat, a popular Vietnamese vlogger based in Ho Chi Minh City. “If the average employee wants to buy two tickets, he will spend a month’s salary.”

Sales have been sluggish, forcing some vendors to cut their losses. On the eve of the game tickets were being sold for half their face value. It remains to be seen if organisers will manage to sell out the capital’s My Dinh stadium.

The fixture – pitching one of the most star-studded teams ever assembled against a national side ranked 143rd in the world – represents an exercise in image-building for Vietnam’s Communist government, which controls the VFF. The federation’s president, Le Hung Dung, has claimed the match will “promote to the outside world a beautiful, peaceful, hospitable, dynamic and deeply culture-imbued Vietnam”.

This is important to Vietnamese leaders, who regularly travel the world seeking cooperative ties and lucrative trade partnerships. Having an internationally famous team come to town creates a good impression, particularly with David Cameron due to visit Vietnam next week with a trade delegation in tow.

“For the nations that host these games it does help their own profile,” says Neil Sillett, a director of sports management firm Sillsport Group. “They can go to a worldwide TV audience and engage with new, bigger sponsors.”

The Far East is establishing itself as the summer destination of choice for the world’s biggest clubs. In the last few weeks Liverpool have visited Thailand and Malaysia, Arsenal have played a tournament in Singapore and Real Madrid, Internazionale and Bayern Munich have been to China.

Vietnam’s obsession with European football began in the mid-1990s when the government began to relax the country’s centralised economy and opened its doors to the world. Television sets became widely available for the first time and international broadcasters moved in.

“TV has changed everything,” says Diep Le, a Hanoi-based English teacher and ardent football fan. “These days, if the English Premier League isn’t on, maybe Serie A and La Liga will be, and if those aren’t on, then we might watch the German or French leagues. There’s not much of a craving for local football any more.”

Diep’s generation grew up cheering on Manchester United’s treble winners and Arsenal’s Invincibles. These days, fans in Hanoi are equally up to speed on the trials and tribulations of Hull City and Newcastle United.

Private companies have wasted no time in cashing in on this phenomenon and Premier League stars and former stars have been arriving in droves. Ruud van Nistelrooy and Robert Pires toured the country with the Champions League trophy in 2014 as brand ambassadors for Uefa and Heineken, Peter Schmeichel came the year before at the invitation of a Vietnamese investment bank and Vincent Kompany promoted local lender Eximbank in 2012. Last year David Beckham received a messiah’s welcome when he flew in to plug his Haig Club brand of whisky.

The City players received a similarly rapturous response when they arrived at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International airport in the early hours of Sunday morning. Thousands of supporters were there to cheer them.

Manh Van Nguyen, administrator of the Manchester City Vietnam Facebook group, says support for the club has rocketed since Sergio Aguero sealed the Premier League title in the dying seconds of the 2011-12 season. “Man City has become very popular in Europe and the entire world, and in Vietnam for sure. When I heard that they were coming here I was so excited I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

City have been alert to the huge market on offer in Vietnam and embarked on a number of goodwill community visits, including to Hanoi University, where players posed happily for selfies with fans.

Omar Berrada, the club’s commercial director, said: “The match is a great opportunity for us to connect with our global fan base and to give supporters outside of England the chance to watch their team play live. Vietnam has almost 60 million football fans, millions of whom also follow City, so it is a natural place for us to want to spend more time.”

The charm offensive has not been completely successful, however. Hoang Nhat, a journalist for state news service VietnamPlus, is unimpressed: “Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea are still more popular than City in Vietnam and the absence of Aguero and Yaya Touré [who are not in the travelling party] is also a big blow.”

He is also cynical about the benefits of the match for the Vietnamese team, who lost 7-1 to Arsenal in their last high-profile friendly. “Obviously, the VFF want to present a good image, but the match will not help Vietnam’s players gain more experience or confidence. It’s just a chance for Vietnamese fans to see world-class players have a casual kickabout.”

However Dylan Kerr, the former Reading and Kilmarnock defender who last year managed Vietnamese club team Hai Phong to victory in the National Cup, argues that Vietnamese football will benefit from the tie. “The match will be a dream for the Vietnamese players,” he said. “There’s a lot of luck in football and they should be thinking, ‘What if I play and they [City] like me? What a great chance to earn myself a contract’.”

VFF general secretary Le Hoai Anh agrees, adding: “Games like this give people here a dream.”