Nguyễn Văn Sang of Hiếu Hoa Đà Nẵng (centre) is surrounded by Sahako players in the last round match of the 2022 National Futsal Championship. This year's tournament will kick off on March 19. Photos courtesy of the VFF

HÀ NỘI — The National HDBank Futsal Championship 2023's new format and rule changes are expected to make a better and stronger tournament when the competition kicks off this weekend.

The Việt Nam Football Federation on March 14 announced the schedule of the event which features eight teams, four from HCM City, two from Hà Nội and one each from Khánh Hòa Province and Đà Nẵng City.

They will compete in a two-leg round robin format in home and away grounds, which is applied for the first time in futsal. Previously, participants played in one place only.

The tournament regulates that each club is allowed to register one foreign player and one player of Vietnamese origin.

"This is the first season that we organised home-and-away ground format," said Trần Anh Tú, Vice President of the VFF. "This is a neccessary condition to develop the national futsal, lift it to a higher level.

"The championship also opens the door for foreigners and overseas Vietnamese. It will increase the competitiveness of the tournament and also raise its quality. All efforts are to improve our futsal in the region and the world.

"It will create challenges for us at first but we also made plans to counter these troubles to ensure the tournament's safety and quality."

Tú said bringing futsal to four big cities and provinces will introduce indoor football to a wider community, push the development of the sport and also create entertaining activities for tourists to the competition destinations.

The first leg will be from March 19 to April 18 and the return from June 28 to August 4 with a total of 56 matches.

The opening match will be a Hà Nội derby between veterans Thái Sơn Bắc and new faces Hà Nội at the Athletics Palace.

Sanvinest Khánh Hòa will host GFDI Sông Hàn at the Nha Trang National College of Pedagogy's gymnasium.

A day later, reigning champion Sahako will entertain Cao Bằng while Tân Hiệp Hưng will face multi-time winner Thái Sơn Nam at the District 8 Futsal Club.

Organiers and sponsorship representative at a tournament press conference on March 14 in Hà Nội.

The winner will enjoy a prize of VNĐ500 million (US$21,300), while the first and second runners-up will have VNĐ200 million and VNĐ100 million, respectively.

As a co-organiser, the Voice of Việt Nam (VOV) will take charge of popularising the tournament on its channels.

"VOV has the strength of a national multimedia press agency with a full range of modern press," said Trần Minh Hùng, deputy general director of the VOV. "We will strongly spread news and information of the championship on all of our platform."

This season's matches will be broadcast on radio and television channels such as VOV1, VOV2, VOV Traffic, VOVTV, VTC1, VTC3 and other channels of VTC Digital Television. Other channels include VOV Live, VTC Now, VOV.vn, VTCnews and Voice of Việt Nam online newspaper.

HDBank Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nguyễn Văn Hảo said it was the seventh year in a row that HDBank accompanied with the national futsal championship. As the sponsorship, HDBank hope to have a quality tournament for clubs, improve the national futsal and at the same time diversify local sports activities in Việt Nam. VNS