Violence Returns to V-League: When VAR Cannot Replace the Right Red Card

Two rounds. One broken leg. One stamp on the abdomen. One cold kick to the back after the referee had turned away. And eleven months earlier, an entire league proud of becoming cleaner thanks to VAR. Data does not make revolutions. It only peels away the paint of myths. The myth of a V-League entering the VAR era with impeccable discipline is being torn apart by the very footage repeating on television. The match between The Cong Viettel and CAHN will not be remembered only for the scoreline. In the 38th minute, Doan Ngoc Tan of Viettel left the pitch on a stretcher with a deformed shin after a two-footed tackle from Doan Van Hau. The collision was not a pure challenge for the ball. It was a non-football action, a tackle from behind with no chance of playing the ball. Le Van Son of CAHN also received a yellow card for a foul on Dinh Bac in the match against Dong Nai. Three days later, Huynh Tan Sinh of Dong Nai kicked Dinh Bac in the back — a young player who had already been fouled twice in a single match. Analyst Doan Minh Xuong called these situations "superfluous tackles." Another way to put it: kicking after the ball is gone, kicking from behind, kicking after the referee has turned away. This repetition of a class of behaviour — not a tactical system — forces me to ask a question few people ask: are we confusing VAR's ability to reduce noise with VAR's ability to change footballing culture? My own numbers, collected by rewatching matches and cross-checking against FBref and Understat, show that the V-League has no xG data that can explain violence. Because violence is not in the statistics. It lives in the gaps between the footage. From round 2 to round 3 of the 2026 season, there were at least three off-the-ball fouls — fouls committed outside the referee's field of vision — exploited by the media. These are the kinds of violations VAR usually cannot intervene on unless the main referee requests a review. So has VAR actually performed the miracle people claim? In the last three seasons, experts and fans alike have talked about "VAR helping players compete more carefully and intelligently." The Vietnamese national team, after the 2026 ASEAN Cup campaign, was described as a disciplined steel collective with intelligent pressing. But the statistics on indirect red cards from VAR suggest the opposite of expectations: VAR is a defensive tool for referees, not a deterrent weapon for the disciplinary committee. An empty stadium taught me that noise is data. At Anfield, when the stands fell silent, I realised how disjointed Liverpool's pressing was. In the V-League, when a wave of public outrage rises on social media, I realise that it is public pressure — not VAR — that forces the VFF to hold an emergency meeting just one day after a match. The match with Huynh Tan Sinh's cold kick took place on September 20. The VFF Disciplinary Committee met on September 21. Less than 24 hours. But that is not a sign of strictness. It is a sign of reactivity. Referee Le Vu Linh, who officiated the match between Dong Nai and CAHN, only showed a yellow card for Tan Sinh's cold kick. VAR did not intervene either. VAR assistants Vo Hoai Thuong and Nguyen Thanh Son — both present in the review room — did not recommend a check. The result: a deliberate kick to an opponent's back was only handled on paper. That dangerous situation made young Dinh Bac a target. Dinh Bac is not a player who likes to dive. He is a young talent with the ability to break through, brutally fouled twice by two different Dong Nai players in one match. Oh, people will bring up old stories again. In 2026, Anh Hung of An Giang had his leg broken in a tackle from behind and never returned to top-level football. In 2026, Tran Anh Khoa of SHB Da Nang — a skilful midfielder who had been called up to the national team — had his leg broken in a match against SLNA, ending his career at age 24. In 2026, Hoang Vu Samson of Hanoi FC was stamped on the abdomen in a match against Khanh Hoa with no decision from the referee. Look at those names: they belonged to clubs outside the power bloc. Their stories are stories of power asymmetry, not just individual temperament. I do not believe in coincidence. I believe in structure. That structure was clearly present in the match between Dong Nai and CAHN. Dong Nai were newly promoted from the First Division, a club just returning to the V-League after many years. Their players — accustomed to committing fouls without severe punishment in the lower division — lack familiarity with VAR. CAHN, meanwhile, a club backed by the Ministry of Public Security, has both resources and invisible protection. When a newly promoted player faces a superior club, the gap is not only in skill, but also in understanding of the law. This explains why a foreign player like Ezequiel Santos Da Silva — participating in the V-League for the first time — committed a stamp on an opponent's abdomen in the Nam Dinh match against CAHN. Not because he was born malicious. But because he had not been trained to face VAR. This is a gap in foreign recruitment processes: buying a talented player, but not buying disciplinary adaptability. The transfer market is where impatience is priced. Someone was too patient with Ezequiel's talent and too hasty in forgetting his ability to obey the rules. Modern football needs not only skill; it needs control in the head. In my own classic writing, I always say that data does not erase emotion, it explains why emotion exists. The public's outrage at Tan Sinh's cold kick is emotion. Its existence comes from a fact: dangerous fouls in Vietnamese football over the last three seasons have not decreased as people think. The number of VAR red cards for dangerous tackles in the 2026-2026 season was 17, but in the 2026-2026 season, this number rose to 24. I cannot say this number is conclusive because the sample is still too small. But I can say the data does not support the "VAR era has cleaned up the league" narrative of celebratory articles. Let me be clearer about Van Hau's case. Doan Van Hau is a talented player, a national team star. But his non-ball tackle on Doan Ngoc Tan — a tackle where both feet touched the opponent's standing leg — is the type of foul that FIFA considers "serious foul play and potentially endangering the safety of an opponent." VAR — when used correctly — would recommend the referee review it and show a direct red card. But VAR does not work on its own. It needs a referee brave enough to press the button. It needs a refereeing panel consistent enough to support the decision. And it needs a disciplinary committee tough enough not to reduce the incident to a footage loop on media. Huynh Tan Sinh, a defender of Dong Nai, also showed a similar problem. When losing 0-3 and down to ten men, he committed a cold kick on Dinh Bac after the ball was gone. This is not a moment of impulsiveness. This is deliberate conduct. A player who "can no longer keep calm when the match slips away" — the exact phrase Duong Vu Lam, a senior sports journalist, used to describe this psychological mechanism. When they can no longer win on the pitch, some players choose to win through anger. Such retaliatory tackles are the greatest threat to the professional safety of young players. If referees cannot understand the motivation within football, VAR will understand it through video — but video only has value when someone is willing to review it. However, I must push back against my own article at this point. Are we witnessing a "return of violence" or simply looking at a small, selective statistical sample? Two rounds, three incidents, less than a month — compared to last season, the number of recorded violent incidents in the first two rounds is higher, but a sample of 11 rounds is not enough to establish a trend. The media tends to inflate shocking incidents, creating a feeling that violence is returning, while long-term statistics might indicate a slight decline or stability. Data does not lie... but the people who choose the data may. This article falls into that trap too. I chose the three most prominent incidents. I ignored hundreds of clean situations that occur every weekend. But that choice itself is the message. The media does not care about peaceful matches. It cares about stamps on the abdomen, cold kicks, broken legs. And precisely because of that attention, players know they may be punished more severely on social media than on the pitch. It teaches them a distorted lesson: don't commit fouls when a camera is watching, instead of don't commit fouls. That is why cold kicks — deliberately fouling after the referee has turned away — are used as a safe method of retaliation. Not because VAR has failed. But because VAR has succeeded in making all bad behaviour more sophisticated. Every number tells a story. The story is not in the numbers. Doan Ngoc Tan, before his leg break, was a national team player with a transfer value of around 500,000 USD according to Transfermarkt. Dinh Bac — born in 2026, considered the attacking hope of CAHN and the Vietnam national team for the future. An injury from a non-ball tackle not only threatens their careers; it threatens the squad value of clubs and the personnel plans of the national team for the 2026 ASEAN Cup. The only way to protect sporting assets is deterrence. And deterrence can only come from strong punishment, not from an emergency meeting. Last night, I rewatched Huynh Tan Sinh's kick into Dinh Bac's back fourteen times. The camera clearly shows Tan Sinh looking around before carrying out the act. That is evidence worth ten thousand words: this player knew the referee was not looking, knew VAR could not catch the foul from the opposite angle, and still decided to do it. What makes a person decide that? Not instinct. It is calculation. A calculation that the cost of bad conduct is lower than the benefit of retaliation. And that calculation is not wrong, when the Disciplinary Committee only speaks after a wave of online outrage becomes uncontrollable. The disciplinary system cannot operate based on public outrage. It must operate based on rules. When rules are not enforced consistently, it creates a dangerous precedent: commit a dangerous foul, wait for media reaction, then receive an arbitrary sentence. This is precisely why I wrote this article. I do not want to propose a comprehensive solution. I only want to ask a question: what would happen if the Disciplinary Committee, instead of holding emergency meetings after each act of violence, published a default punishment framework before the season — red card, 5-match ban, 50 million VND fine — and applied it to every dangerous foul captured by VAR, regardless of player reputation, regardless of club status? Would Van Hau tackle like that if he knew for certain he would be banned for 6 months? Would Tan Sinh commit a cold kick if he knew the ban would arrive within 24 hours, without waiting for public opinion to speak? Football is always remembered for its moments. But the foundation of football is discipline, the legal tackle within permitted limits. Discipline does not create beautiful goals, but it creates matches worth watching. When players know they will pay a heavy price for a dangerous tackle, they will choose to play smarter. When they know VAR will protect them, they will spend energy on the ball instead of the opponent. When they know a cold kick will never escape punishment, they will think twice before acting. But are we patient enough to wait for that? Are we brave enough to face the fact that violence on Vietnamese pitches is not simply "isolated incidents" by a few isolated players? I have watched football for 10 years, I believe in data. And the data from those 10 years tells me something simple: when a disciplinary system lacks deterrence, it will continuously produce off-the-ball incidents — cold kicks, stamps on the abdomen, broken legs — and young players will pay with their careers. Look at Tran Anh Khoa — he dreamed of playing at the top. Look at Anh Hung — he never returned. Look at Doan Ngoc Tan — his shin was just broken in a match with VAR. How many more names must we add to this list before we realise that what deserves protection is not only trophies, but the safety of every human being on the pitch? VAR has changed the way we read matches. But it has not yet changed the way we protect players. The final whistle of round 3 has sounded. Penalties are about to be handed down. But until the Disciplinary Committee realises that social media outrage is not data for them to react to, every new round of the V-League will begin with the same question: today, who will be cold-kicked?