VPF hires foreign referees to officiate the 'final' match between Hanoi and Nam Dinh Green Steel

This is a turning point match in the V-League championship race. After round 20, Nam Dinh is currently leading the table with 39 points, 2 points more than second-placed Hanoi FC. Whichever team wins will have a good chance of winning the cup.

Information from VPF said the match will be officiated by two Malaysian FIFA referees, Mr. Muhammad Izzul Fikri Kamaruzaman and Mr. Razlan Joffri Bin Ali. One will be the referee and the other will act as the VAR referee. This is the fourth match this season that the Organizing Committee has hired a foreign referee to officiate.

Despite the application of VAR technology, the V-League is still noisy in the final rounds because of refereeing. Some teams even reacted very strongly, typically the cases of Dong A Thanh Hoa, Quang Nam or especially HAGL recently. A VPF official said that hiring foreign referees is partly to "solve the psychological problems" of the clubs because the quality of Vietnamese refereeing is not inferior to regional colleagues.

The results of the final matches can determine the team’s ranking, so the top or bottom teams become “sensitive” to referee errors. Therefore, for some hot matches, VPF chooses to hire foreign referees, thereby reducing the pressure on domestic referees.

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Source: https://tienphong.vn/vpf-thue-trong-tai-ngoai-bat-tran-chung-ket-ha-noi-thep-xanh-nam-dinh-post1738368.tpo