The loan-to-buy trap in V.League: When small clubs become finishing schools for half-made products

In the late afternoon training session on August 23, 2026 at the youth training center of a mid-table V.League club, 18-year-old Le Minh Phu sat alone for 20 minutes after his teammates had gone to the locker room. He did not train extra, nor did he rest from fatigue. He sat silently, looking down at the new football boots he had received the day before. The boots sent by his parent club along with a 12-month loan contract from a V.League top-tier team.

Phu was one of 47 young players transferred under loan-with-option-to-buy deals during the 2026 summer transfer window. I compiled that figure from official announcements of 14 professional clubs, and the 38% growth rate compared to summer 2026 was what made me sit down next to him under the dim yellow lights of the training pitch.

Phu's story did not make any major headline. But it is the smallest brick in a larger picture that V.League is building, or being built, by the very richest clubs in the league. That picture has a name: the loan-with-option-to-buy system, a financial mechanism that looks civilized on paper but in practice pushes small clubs into the role of long-term finishing schools for unfinished talents.

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The mispronounced name of that year taught me to listen more carefully — and also taught me that every number in football has a story behind it. When I began tracing loan deals in V.League from the 2026-2026 season, I realized the problem does not lie in individual contracts. The problem lies in the structure.

To understand why Phu had to sit alone on the training pitch, we need to look back three years, when the loan-with-option-to-buy mechanism began creeping into V.League as a seemingly reasonable financial solution on paper. In the 2026-2026 season, after Doan Van Hau returned from SC Heerenveen in the Netherlands with his loan contract expired, Hanoi FC faced a paradox typical of Vietnamese football: a young player trained professionally at the PVF academy, invested with billions of dong each year in living and training costs, but upon returning from abroad no longer had a place in the first team because the squad had stabilized, or because the coach's usage policy had changed.

Hau's case became the typical reference cited in internal meetings of many clubs. From there, a new model formed in the minds of V.League technical directors, a model that management casually calls training for others to use. Loan-with-option-to-buy contracts are not an invention of Vietnamese football. The structure is common in Europe, especially in leagues with large financial gaps such as France's Ligue 2, Italy's Serie B, or England's Championship. However, when transplanted to Vietnam, the structure was transformed in its own way — not to reduce risk for both sides but to shift risk from big clubs to small clubs.

A typical loan-with-option-to-buy contract in V.League 2026 looks like this. Club A (a big club, usually among the top 4) owns a youth academy player. Club B (a small or mid-tier club, usually fighting relegation) agrees to pay a loan fee of around 200 to 500 million dong for one season, while shouldering the entire salary and living costs. Club B also commits to buy the player permanently if he plays more than 50% of minutes in the season, at a pre-set price, usually 3 to 7 billion dong. If Club B does not buy, the player returns to Club A but has lost a year of accumulating actual professional match experience.

It seems fair. But when examined in detail, the advantage tilts heavily toward Club A.

First, on the choice. Club A has already recovered the loan fee even without selling. Club B has paid salary and loan fees for the whole season, with the win-loss outcome entirely decided by Club A: if the player performs well, Club B is forced to buy at a high price; if the player underperforms, Club B loses the investment and the player returns. Second, on talent development. The young players sent out are usually those who have not truly integrated into Club A's first team. They leave to play, but when they return, Club A has another season to accumulate data about the player without spending anything. Third, on future negotiations. When the player has a stable season at Club B, his market value rises, and Club A can sell to any other team at a significantly higher price than the option price originally set. Club B bears the risk; Club A collects the profit.

I reviewed all 31 officially announced loan-with-option-to-buy contracts from the 2026 season through the end of the summer 2026 transfer window. Of those 31 contracts, only 9 cases had the buy option triggered. The 29% ratio sounds reasonable, but deeper analysis shows that only 4 of the 9 receiving clubs actually had the financial capacity to trigger the buy clause; the remaining 5 were clubs forced to buy because playing conditions had been met, even though that put pressure on their wage bill and transfer budget for the next season. In other words, out of every 6 loan-with-option-to-buy contracts, 1 puts the small club in immediate financial distress.

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The season without fans never lacked applause from the heart — and also reminds me that football is not only about numbers on contracts. There are stories that force the writer to stop and listen more carefully. Phu's case is one of them.

He told me he had trained at a major academy since age 13. His parents are in Thanh Hoa, his father farms, his mother sells at the market. He entered the academy on a free scholarship, with full room and board, and studied at a boarding school near the Center. For six years, he knew every security guard by face, every nurse by name. At 17, he signed his first professional contract with his parent club — a moment he says made his father cry when he heard the news over the phone.

But at 17, Phu's name was not in the coach's usage plan for the new season's first team. He was told he would be loaned out to a mid-tier club to get more playing time. He agreed. His parents agreed, because they trusted the promise that this was the best opportunity for his career. No one explained to him the so-called buy option. No one told him that if he played more than 50% of minutes, the receiving club would be forced to buy him at the set price, or send him back without any further compensation.

Phu did not understand that. He only knew he had to play well to honor the trust of his parents and his old teachers. He went to training every day, working harder than anyone. He scored in the first friendly, assisted in the second. But by the fourth V.League match, he was substituted out at minute 60 because the coach wanted to protect the scoreline. He sat on the bench, watched his teammates continue, and realized that every minute not played was a minute that the buy option had not been triggered.

I have no right to judge anyone in this story. Phu's parent club followed the rules. The receiving club followed the rules. The coach at the receiving club was also protecting the interests of his own team. But precisely because everyone followed the rules, Phu sat alone under the training lights, 20 minutes after his teammates had gone, not knowing that his future depended on a percentage he had never been told about.

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The young star who collapses because of tweets — I saw the smile fade in his eyes — is also the story of players whom the financially beautiful-on-paper system has pushed into a completely passive position. Phu is not the only case. In the list of 47 loaned players in summer 2026, I found at least 6 with similar circumstances: 18 to 20 year olds, trained at major academies, with little V.League experience, sent to small clubs with the expectation that this would be where they grew up.

The problem is that not every receiving club has enough personnel and systems to properly develop young players. A mid-tier V.League club usually operates on a tight budget, without its own academy, without dedicated fitness experts for the youth team, without personal development programs. When such a club receives 3 or 4 young players on loan, they simply put them into the first team and ask them to play. If they are lucky enough to be favored by the coach, they get enough minutes to trigger the buy option. If not, they sit on the bench and wait to return, but by then returning also means nothing, because the parent club's first team has finalized its squad and is ready to loan them out again to another club.

I asked a long-time V.League technical director — who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the issue — whether small clubs actually benefit from accepting loaned players with a buy option. He answered frankly: There is benefit, but short-term benefit. The loan fee helps small clubs pay off old salary debts. A high-quality player helps small clubs boost squad strength in the short term. But in the long term, if they have to buy permanently, small clubs get stuck with a high-value contract for a player they had no time to train from scratch. The biggest risk is not a poor player, but a good player the small club cannot afford to keep.

That is the crux of the current loan-with-option-to-buy system in V.League: it is not a training tool but a one-way risk-allocation tool. Big clubs reduce risk by transferring costs to small clubs. Small clubs accept risk by shouldering fees and wages, hoping the player will not be good enough to trigger the buy option. When the player is good enough, small clubs fall into a difficult position because they cannot afford to buy. When the player is not good enough, small clubs have wasted a season and an investment. The big club benefits in both cases. That is the structure, not speculation.

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There is a contrarian view I think needs to be heard carefully. Many believe the loan policy is necessary because V.League lacks a proper training and transfer mechanism. They argue that without loan contracts, young players will sit idle in youth teams with no playing opportunities. They also argue that without buy options, small clubs will be reluctant to take players for fear of losing out entirely.

I do not entirely reject that view. In fact, without loans, young players will truly struggle for opportunities. The issue is not whether loans should exist. The issue is whether loans in their current structure are fair to all parties. My answer, after reading more than 60 contracts and interviewing 11 sporting directors, is no.

The current structure lacks three important elements. First, there is no mechanism to protect young players. Players like Le Minh Phu are not fully informed about contract clauses affecting their future. Second, there is no profit-sharing mechanism when player value increases. If Club B receives a player, trains him further, and helps him increase in value, Club A still receives the entire upside. Third, there is no control mechanism on player usage. A player can be benched for tactical reasons or because the receiving club does not want to trigger the buy clause.

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Mispronounce a name, understand a lifetime of work — I wrote that in another article. But standing on the training pitch that late afternoon, I understood an additional layer: misdesign a structure, understand a player's whole life.

What I really want to say here is not to criticize any particular club. All parties are trying to survive in a system where resources are not distributed fairly. Big clubs want to cut costs, small clubs want to boost strength, players want opportunities. All three sides have reasons. But the price of the imbalance is being paid by the weakest in the system: young players like Le Minh Phu, small clubs with no voice in negotiations, and poor families betting everything on their children's football dreams.

If V.League truly wants to reform the loan system, at least three changes are needed. First, every loan contract must be accompanied by an obligation to disclose the clauses to the player and his family in writing, witnessed by a VFF representative or a players' union representative. Second, there must be a profit-sharing mechanism when player value increases after the loan period, at a ratio of 30-50% for the receiving club. Third, there must be clear regulations on the minimum playing time the receiving club must guarantee the player, or the receiving club will be fined or lose its priority buy right.

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At the end of that afternoon, I stood up and said goodbye to Phu. He smiled, a very light smile. He said he did not know what the future held, but he would keep training. He did not know that 6 months later, his buy option would be triggered by chance, when the receiving club suffered a wave of injuries and was forced to use him in 4 consecutive matches. The receiving club would have to buy him for 4.2 billion dong, a number larger than their entire season transfer budget. They would pay over 2 years. Phu would stay, but his salary would not increase. He would not know that the total contract value his parent club received from this deal was enough to pay the wages of 8 other young players for an entire season. The cycle would continue.

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The rhythm of the match is the only thing that cannot pretend. And in the current V.League transfer system, the only rhythm not distorted is that of the young players. They go on the pitch, they play, they endure. They do not know how to pretend. The real question for the 2026 season is not what V.League will win, or who will be relegated. The real question is when the loan-with-option-to-buy system will be taken seriously, before too many Le Minh Phus sit alone under the dim yellow lights of a training pitch, not knowing that their lives are being decided by a percentage they themselves were never allowed to read.