The foreign referee missed the penalty for the Ha Tinh - HAGL match
In the 69th minute, when the score was 1-1, Paullo Oliveira broke the offside trap and escaped to catch a long pass from his teammates. In front of him is only goalkeeper Huynh Tuan Linh. But Ha Tinh's striker could not finish, Mauricio crossed his feet and had a knocking effect. Paullo raised his hand to demand a penalty, but referee Kim Jong-hyeok refused. Outside the field, the Ha Tinh coaching staff reacted violently.
According to the match supervisor's report, referee Kim "handled inappropriately". In this situation, the referee had a basis to blow a penalty for Ha Tinh because defender Mauricio came from behind, did not touch the ball but had an impact on the home striker.
This error is said to affect the match result, because if it is awarded a penalty and a successful kick, Ha Tinh can win to win the right to relegation.
Draw 1-1, Ha Tinh only reached 21 points, two points higher than the bottom team Saigon and the penultimate team Nam Dinh one point. In the next round, they are guests of Hanoi - the team is racing to win the championship, while Nam Dinh and Saigon kick "reverse finals" against each other. Ha Tinh's last match took place on November 19, against Thanh Hoa.
Before this match, HAGL also benefited from a controversial situation involving penalties. In the 22nd round, referee Tran Ngoc Nho gave the owner of Pleiku stadium 11m in the situation where Tran Minh Vuong tripped himself in injury time in the Binh Dinh match. Defender Vu Van Thanh then succeeded, equalizing 1-1 for HAGL. Because of this mistake, Mr. Nho was suspended until the end of the tournament, and Binh Dinh fell behind in the championship race.
Due to many mistakes made by domestic referees, Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company VPF invited foreign referees to control a number of "hot" matches, affecting the championship or relegation race. However, things did not go completely smoothly. For example, the match Da Nang beat Saigon 1-0 on November 3. In the 88th minute, when Da Nang was leading the table, striker Pham Dinh Duy was fouled by defender Lieu Quang Vinh in the Saigon penalty area, but Thai referee Mongkolchai Pechsri did not give the host a penalty. After the match, both the supervisor and the referees confirmed this situation, Da Nang should be entitled to 11m.
VPF is said to have to spend 150 million VND per round to hire foreign arbitrators, many times higher than the costs for domestic referees.
Currently, the source of quality arbitration in Vietnam is also very low. According to FIFA's allocation, the Vietnam Football Federation was allowed to register six referees and eight male assistant referees, but by the time there were only three FIFA referees, Ngo Duy Lan, Hoang Ngoc Ha and Nguyen Manh Hai. This level is only equivalent to Laos and Cambodia.
