Not just one of the more marketable\nfootballers in the country, the 22-year-old is one of the most famous people,\nfull stop, in this nation of 96 million where the national sport and celebrity\nmix like few others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s an insatiable demand for news about\nthe national team stars, tickets to major matches often go for 50-100 times\ntheir face value on the black market and the atmosphere around the home stadium\nin My Dinh is something between a rock concert, a fireworks festival and an\nillegal dance party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The one player at the centre of all this attention is the exceptionally gifted Nguyen Quang Hai \u2013 long a personal favourite of mine and now one of the biggest football stars not just in Southeast Asia but across the continent more broadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why then is he still playing his club\nfootball in a rather modest venue in the middle of the chaos of downtown Hanoi,\nprancing about in front of a huge portrait of Ho Chi Minh in front of crowds of\na couple of thousand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pint-sized playmaker should be by now at\none of the top clubs in Asia or at a much higher level in Europe \u2013 as his\nteammates Nguyen Cong Phuong, Doan Van Hau and Dang Van Lam are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer is neither straightforward nor\neasy to understand but much centres on the reluctance of his club, Hanoi FC, to\nallow Quang Hai and others to move. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
True, they did permit Van Hau to undertake\na one-year loan at Heerenveen in the Dutch top flight but as with many others\nin Vietnam from different clubs, loan deals tend to be the extent of the\npermissions allowed for players to move abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s much speculation about the nature of the contracts signed by many Vietnamese players, with huge numbers understood to be subjected to terms far in excess of the maximum number of years permitted by FIFA \u2013 a shackle that effectively keeps them tied to the clubs that have been responsible for their development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n