Vietnam Football Federation fined for firing French coach
HANOI - The Vietnam Football Federation has been ordered to pay $197,800 US in compensation and fines for unjustifiably firing its former national soccer coach, an official said Wednesday. The Court of Arbitration for Sports, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, gave the Vietnam federation a deadline of Jan. 10 to compensate French-born Christian Letard or face a two-year ban from all international competitions, said VFF vice-president Tran Duy Ly. "This is a lesson for us," Ly said.
Letard, who was hired on an 18-month contract to lead to the national soccer team in March 2002, was fired after just five months after the team posted disappointing results. FIFA had ruled that the VFF should only pay Letard three months salary and other fees worth $35,000. Letard, however, filed an appeal to CAS, which forced the VFF to pay the remaining 13 months of salary from his contract, along with other fines increasing the amount to $197,800, Ly said. The CAS ruling is final. Ly said the VFF has sent an appeal to FIFA to delay the deadline until mid February to allow it to negotiate a lesser penalty. VFF has hired nine foreign coaches to lead its national soccer squad since 1995.
Its latest casualty was Brazilian Edson Tavares, who was promptly fired after Vietnam's embarrassing 0-3 loss to Indonesia last month that saw it eliminated from the Tiger Cup semifinals for the first time since the biennial regional soccer tournament began in 1996. State-controlled Media have published a series of articles calling for the VFF leadership to resign for its unprofessional management. Vietnam, with a population of 82 million, has never won a major regional soccer competition nor qualified for the World Cup.
The Associated Press - January 5, 2005
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