The ASIAD Sepak Takraw Gold and the Missing Name on the Reward Table

I read the reward announcement for Vietnam's women's sepak takraw team three times in one morning, and each time my eyes stopped at the same place: the name that was not written. Two athletes were named outright — Nguyen Thi Thu Trang and Nguyen Thi Khanh Ly, both on the Hanoi payroll — while the third member of the ASIAD gold-medal squad existed only as half a sentence: "and one other athlete." No name, no hometown, no figure of her own. Three people stepped onto the highest podium together, heard the same national anthem, but when the money arrived, two had an address and one became a mystery.

I am used to looking at the gaps rather than at what is written. Years ago, I stood before a similar notice and also overlooked the missing name. Only later did I understand: the missing name often tells the truer story than the name that is present. At Nua San Co, I learned that the most important part of a women's sports report lies in what people choose not to write, not in the headline.

Vietnam's women's sepak takraw team won gold at ASIAD 20, held in Nagoya, Japan. This is a purely Southeast Asian sport — using the feet, head, and shoulders to send a ball over a net — governed by the Asian Sepak Takraw Federation, entirely separate from the international federation system of familiar Olympic sports. It is a victory at a continental arena, but in a sport that Vietnamese media only remember on the exact day there is a medal. On ordinary days, sepak takraw has no place on the front page. On a gold-medal day, it takes the whole page.

Before talking about money, let us talk about the court. Vietnam's women's sepak takraw has no professional league system. The athletes train in borrowed arenas, gather in batches, and live on payroll salaries. When they win a continental gold, it is the result of years of accumulation under conditions I call "half a pitch" — half the space to compete, half the budget, half the attention. So when the reward table appears, it goes beyond the money story. It is a measure of how society values women's achievements.

The reward for that medal is divided into two tiers. The state tier rests on Decree 349/2026/ND-CP: each athlete receives 280 million dong in achievement bonus, plus a special preferential allowance of 20 million dong per month, running from the date of the result until the next ASIAD congress — about 48 months, equal to 960 million dong. In total, each athlete receives about 1.24 billion dong from the state budget, and the three-person team receives nearly 3.72 billion dong. That is the figure the bulletins call "nearly 4 billion dong."

The second tier is the city tier. Hanoi, under Resolution 82/2026/NQ-HDND, adds 140 million dong per athlete and a special allowance of 33.5 million dong per month, also over 48 months — about 1.608 billion dong. Combined, each athlete on the Hanoi payroll receives nearly 1.748 billion dong from the city alone. Coach Hoang Thi Thai Xuan receives 50 percent of one athlete's entitlement. There is also a "hot bonus" of 200 million dong from the delegation, not counting the federation and sponsor rewards, which have not been published.

The first thing to state clearly: this is a two-tier reward structure, and the two tiers do not add up equally for everyone. One gold medal, but two different income levels within the same team — the difference lies not in achievement, but in where one is registered in the sports household registry.

The arithmetic makes it plain. The two Hanoi athletes each receive about 1.24 billion from the state plus 1.748 billion from the city — nearly 3 billion dong each. The third athlete, if not on the Hanoi payroll, receives only the state portion — about 1.24 billion dong, less than half. The same diving save, the same point, the same medal, but rewards that differ by nearly two and a half times. That gap is not because one played better than another; it is set by the administrative system.

I once sat in a press room in Binh Duong and heard a coach say something I never forgot: "Women athletes are not afraid of hard training; they are only afraid of not knowing where the money will come from at the end of the month." Back then I did not fully understand. Now, looking at the two-tier reward table, I do: what athletes need is a stable and fair figure, not merely a large one. An allowance of 20 million dong per month sounds impressive, but it is designed around the Games cycle — meaning its real value depends on the calendar, not on a fixed sum. If the cycle changes, if the budget is adjusted, if the next ASIAD is postponed, that supposedly guaranteed money can flex.

This is where I want to speak plainly to my readers: Vietnam's sports rewards are being designed on a "two-tier, one-cycle" model — solid for those with a strong administrative address, fragile for those without. And that model, whether by accident or design, is reproducing the very inequality we usually attribute to "social prejudice" — except this time it comes from the payroll, not from a commentator's remark.

I have spent many years following women's sports events, and I have learned one thing: the greatest injustice usually does not lie in the shouts from the stands, but in the fine print of a contract annex. It is the same here. No one says out loud that the third athlete receives less, but the allocation table speaks for all of it.

There is another telling detail: the coach receives 50 percent of one athlete's entitlement. This is a mechanism tying the income of the person who leads to the achievement of the person who competes — a fairly sophisticated design, rarely mentioned in the press. It shows that Vietnam's reward system is codified in detail, not an arbitrary envelope. But precisely because it is detailed, it forces us to ask: if the reward level depends on payroll, then how is the 50 percent calculated for a coach whose team has two Hanoi athletes and one from another province? That ambiguity, if it exists, usually surfaces only when there is a dispute — that is, when it is already too late for gentle words.

I have followed many seasons of women's sports, from football to volleyball to sepak takraw, and I have noticed a pattern: women athletes' achievements are usually rewarded as "one-off," while men athletes' achievements are usually rewarded as "long-term." A women's gold medal can bring a lump sum, but rarely opens a career. That is why the monthly special allowance — even if only for 48 months — matters so much. It is the difference between "being paid" and "being sustained."

There is a reverse reading I believe is truer. The bulletins all headline "nearly 4 billion dong" for three athletes, and that phrasing accidentally makes the public think this gold was generously compensated. But "nearly 4 billion" is only the state budget portion. If you add the Hanoi tier, the hot bonus, and the federation and sponsor shares, the true figure may be much higher — for two people. For the third, the true figure may be lower than what the headline suggests. In other words, the headline does not exaggerate the reward; it exaggerates the equality of the reward.

And here is the counter-intuitive point: precisely because the reward system is written so clearly, so methodically, the gap between athletes becomes harder to deny. A vague system can be excused by "circumstances." A system with a decree, a resolution, a formula cannot. It forces us to look straight at the question: are we rewarding achievement, or are we rewarding residence?

At Nua San Co, I still tell young people that a pitch does not discriminate by gender, only a gaze discriminates between players. Now I want to add a clause: that gaze comes from the stands, and also from the budget allocation table. A woman athlete can defeat every opponent on the court, but she cannot defeat a line of text in a resolution.

I once thought about leaving. People call it leaving; I call it finding my own half of the pitch. But then I realized: if the writer of women's sports leaves, the missing name in the bulletin will be missing forever. For three weeks I heard the grass grow, with no one kicking it — and it was in those three silent weeks that I understood silence is not a solution, but part of the problem.

A good reward system is not the one that pays the winner the most, but the one that keeps people from worrying about what they will live on after retirement. If a women's sepak takraw athlete's gold medal is only enough to live on for 48 months, then that system is paying for a moment, not investing in a life.

I am not writing this to demand that anyone pay more. I am writing to ask a question I believe the next generation of women athletes will have to answer: if the gold medal belongs to the whole team, should the reward also belong to the whole team? When a system is mature enough to write a 50 percent formula for the coach, it is also mature enough to write a fairer formula for the third athlete. What is missing is not money. What is missing is a name.