OFFICIAL: Vietnamese naturalized player receives historic decision

From the 2025/2026 season onward, VPF will permit players to switch their nationality within the season's registration periods.

On the afternoon of March 26, 2026, at the Vietnam Football Federation Hall (Hanoi), Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company (VPF) held a conference to implement preparations and organize the National Professional Football League (NPFL) for the 2026/27 season.

Alongside matters related to the 2026/27 competition schedule and the draft Technical Regulations for the 2026/27 season, representatives from various departments of the VFF also disseminated key points from the Vietnam Football Regulations (issued on November 21, 2025), the amended and supplemented 2026 disciplinary rules, as well as licensing activities for the new season.

According to the draft Regulations, the 2026/27 season will introduce significant new features regarding player personnel rules:

• First, clubs are allowed to register up to three players aged between 15 and 16 years old (as of the registration date for the tournament). This is a more liberal adjustment compared to the previous rule, which only permitted registering up to three players who were exactly 16 years old.
• Second, players will be permitted to change their nationality during the season's registration phases. This groundbreaking regulation replaces the previous barrier that prohibited players from altering their nationality throughout the duration of the competition.

This is the best possible news for Vietnamese naturalized players, as previously, within a single season, a player could only register under one nationality status. Hoang Hen, the new player who recently debuted for the Vietnam national team, also missed the early phase of this season while playing for Hanoi FC due to waiting for his naturalization process to be finalized.

With this regulation, the 2026/2027 season promises to see more cases of naturalized players and bring additional quality to the league. A player can register as a foreigner in phase 1 but, if they complete the naturalization process, can still play as a naturalized player in phase 2. Consequently, the Vietnam national team will also gain more sources of high-quality naturalized players.

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