HÀ NỘI — Former captain of the Việt Nam senior football team, Lê Công Vinh, resigned as acting chairman of HCM City FC on May 2.

“In recent times, I see that not everything in the club is running towards the goal and orientation which the two sides agreed on, so I actively stopped,” said 32-year-old Vinh.

After retiring from playing football, Vinh took the role of acting chairman of HCM City FC, in V.League 1, at the beginning of 2017.

While acting as chairman, Vinh, who won the Vietnamese Golden Ball Award three times in 2004, 2006 and 2007, has changed a number of players in the training bench.

Vinh invited former Việt Nam national team coach Toshiya Miura to train HCM City FC after Miura’s dismissal by the national side. Miura was manager of both the national and U23 squads of Việt Nam from 2014-16.

Vinh also recruited many qualified players such as Âu Văn Hoàn, Victor Ormazabal of Argentina and Russian Rod Dyachenko.

Vinh, who is widely considered one of the best players in Southeast Asia, also upgraded the team’s dressing room at Thống Nhất Stadium to five-star quality.

In early April, he decided to invest more than VNĐ40 billion (US$1.74 miliion) to install a billboard system in the stadium.

Last year, HCM City finished 12th place in the national premier league. Under the guidance of Vinh, the team are now in fourth position out of 14 teams after six rounds with nine points.

On May 2, Vinh also announced that he was opening the CV9 Academy, an academy of Football for All in HCM City, and a long-nurtured dream of his.

The best shooter of the V. League, Vinh also invited former Australian national footballer Marshall Soper to be a technical consultant for his institute. — VNS