The Ball Rolls in Japan, But Vietnamese Screens Are Still Dark

On the morning of September 14, I sat in a small café on Nguyen Chi Thanh Street in Da Nang. Beside the wall-mounted television, a middle-aged man kept typing into a search bar, muttering to himself: "Where can I watch this, where can I watch this?" I looked at the screen. No signal. No channel. No line of text announcing that a match was about to begin. Only a news bulletin reading about some meeting in Hanoi. This afternoon at 2 PM, the Vietnam women's team opens its campaign against Chinese Taipei in Group E of Asiad 20. Tomorrow at 5 PM, U23 Vietnam faces Kuwait in Group C. Yet as of the morning of September 14, not a single Vietnamese broadcaster has announced that it holds the rights. The fans are standing before a dark space — a quiet, soundless dark space that is enough to swallow an entire afternoon of waiting. This is not the first time I have touched this anxiety. Back at the 2026 World Cup, I stood in a newsroom where everyone bowed their heads over their phones, waiting for a line of news about the rights. But this time is different. This time the question is no longer "who will buy?" but "is there still time?" Because football is not like a film that can be replayed. A match missed is a match erased from collective memory, forever. According to Tuổi Trẻ, an entity in Vietnam was reportedly very close to purchasing the Asiad 20 rights more than a week ago. Then silence. The reason has not been stated to this day. Meanwhile, five other Southeast Asian nations — Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines — already have rights holders. Vietnam stands at the edge of a playground in which it is one of the main characters. Asiad 20 takes place this year in Japan, gathering 45 countries and territories, more than 11,000 athletes, and 469 events across 43 sports. For Vietnam, football remains the main dish — two teams in action before the opening ceremony scheduled for September 19. In other words, the two emotionally most important matches are also the two most likely to be forgotten on the airwaves. In seven years holding a microphone, I have learned one thing: Vietnamese fans do not fear their team losing. They fear not being able to watch their team lose. That fear may sound paradoxical, but it is truly the nature of a football culture that lives on memory. The people of Da Nang, Hanoi, Saigon — they do not need a ticket into the stadium. They only need a signal. A frame. A voice of commentary. Just enough to know that the ball is still rolling for them. From a purely professional standpoint, both openers are hinge matches. The women's team faces Chinese Taipei — a regional seed-mate, met many times at continental tournaments. U23 Vietnam faces Kuwait — a West Asian side with which Vietnamese youth football has a certain history. But tactics are not the issue here. The issue is this: to analyze a match, you must first have a match to watch. And to have a match to watch, there must be a broadcaster willing to buy the rights. This Asiad rights saga is a textbook lesson in the media-rights market. When an event approaches without a confirmed buyer, bargaining power shifts. The seller fears losing the market. The buyer — the one who "almost" signed more than a week ago — may be waiting for a lower price, softer terms, or may be stuck on financing, guarantees, or payment. No figures have been disclosed. That is the most worrying sign of all. The silence of a negotiation often says more than any statement ever could. I have witnessed last-minute rights deals throughout my career. In 2026, a World Cup match had its rights finalized at 10 PM the night before kickoff. The broadcaster then had to sprint like a team playing extra time. But the World Cup is different from the Asiad. The World Cup is a global brand that must be aired. The Asiad is a multi-sport Games in which football is only one part of a total package — meaning football's value may be diluted, or conversely, it may be the most expensive slice of the pie. If football is the most expensive slice of the Asiad 20 package for the Vietnamese market, then the slow negotiation may well be stuck precisely on that slice. The buyer wants football; the seller insists on the whole bundle. That is not a new problem in the sports-rights industry. But the old problem, paradoxically, often ends in a new loss — borne by the audience. Looking at five neighboring countries that already have the rights, I must say plainly: the gap here lies not in the quality of the teams, but in the speed of commercial machinery. Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines have all closed their deals. Vietnam has not. The comparison hurts, but it is necessary. Because modern football is not played only on the pitch. It is played at the negotiating table, in contracts, in broadcast infrastructure. And on those fronts, we are losing before the ball even rolls. There is one thing I want to make clear: this is not the story of any single broadcaster, agency, or individual. It is the story of an entire sports system that has not yet built a rights-sales mechanism fast, transparent, and flexible enough to keep pace with international events. When a tournament opens before its opening ceremony, Vietnamese fans should have been informed weeks in advance. Not hours. But let us not doubt yet. At 67, I still believe in magic, because I have seen a rough gem find itself in the mud. I have seen deals that seemed dead open at midnight. I have seen screens that seemed dark suddenly light up while the whole country was eating dinner. And what I believe most is this: the ball itself is poetry. A good poem cannot be buried forever. It only needs a reader patient enough. A rough gem needs no polishing, only a gaze patient enough to love. There is another possibility I must raise as a responsible writer. If no Vietnamese broadcaster buys the rights, fans will find a way around. Pirated feeds. Strange links. Foreign sources. This has happened before, and it will again, as an inevitable consequence of a market left unserved. This is something no sponsor wants to hear: when audiences leave official channels, they take with them both attention and brand value. Football does not disappear. Only the way Vietnamese people watch football changes. The irony lies in this: the rights controversy has inadvertently become a bigger talking point than the performances of the two teams. Fans are discussing television more than Chinese Taipei or Kuwait. They are debating contracts more than lineups. A match has become a negotiation. And the laughter, at times, sounds like a collective sigh. If there is one thing I want readers to remember, it is this: football memory is not created on the pitch. It is created where each of us sits to watch. In the café this morning, the middle-aged man is still typing into the search bar. Behind him, a boy in a red star-yellow shirt, hugging a plastic ball, sits waiting. The child knows nothing of rights. He only knows that today the women's team plays, and he wants to see someone like him, fighting for something larger than themselves. Football always reminds me that the greatest things are told through the smallest moments. A pass. A bowed head. A startled glance toward an empty stand. Hoa Xuan Stadium is so silent that I can hear the ball sigh — and I realize that, everywhere, football memory also needs a stand, even if that stand is only a small screen in a familiar room. For Vietnamese football, I believe the media crisis is not the end. It is a reminder. A reminder that a mature football culture must not only know how to raise players, but also know how to prepare a seat for its audience on time. That seat may be a stadium, a television, a phone screen in the pocket of a night-shift worker. But whatever it is, it must exist before the opening whistle sounds. Tonight, I will sit before the screen again, and wait. Not because I believe someone will broadcast. But because I believe in having to wait. For the most beautiful memory of Vietnamese football does not begin with a goal. It begins with an afternoon sitting before the television, nervous, believing that one is about to see something more beautiful than football itself.