Smoke Over the Stands: When Flares Become the Forgotten Breathing of Vietnamese Football

Smoke Over the Stands: When Flares Become the Forgotten Breathing of Vietnamese Football

I still remember the night of V.League 2026 Round 14, the Sanna Khanh Hoa – HAGL match at 19/8 Stadium. Not Van Toan's step-over. But a red flame bursting in Stand H, behind the goal. A group of supporters lit flares — one, then two, then three. Orange smoke curled up slowly like mist, blurring an entire corner of the stand. The referee paused the match for three minutes. Players from both sides stood in the middle of the pitch, hands on hips, breathing. No one said a word.

In those three minutes, I sat in the commentary row, notebook open, not recording the score. I wrote: '180 seconds of Stand H not singing, not clapping, just watching the smoke fade.' That was the first time I understood that Vietnamese football has something no one has named correctly. Not the match. Not the supporters. But the space between them — where a flare is both a love letter and a warning.

The pitch breathes through the whistle, through studs, through the silence after a broken play.

Context: an explosion elsewhere, a question here

On September 24 — year unspecified in the original report — in San Francisco Tepojaco, Cuautitlan Izcalli, State of Mexico, a religious procession ended in tragedy. A private vehicle carrying fireworks caught fire on Aldama Street. A 15-year-old died, 11 were treated, among them 7 minors and 4 adults. Seven were transferred to IMSS Lomas Verdes hospital. Emergency responders included Civil Protection, Firefighters, municipal police, the State of Mexico Security Secretariat, and the National Guard.

The Cuautitlan Izcalli City Council later confirmed a notable detail: the procession was not part of the authorised festivities programme, while the official festivities were scheduled to begin on October 2. In other words, a public event carrying explosives took place outside authorised parameters, and authorities only spoke up after someone had died.

I read this report three times. First as international news. Second as a lesson in event management. Third, I read it as a mirror held up to what happens on V.League stands every weekend.

Because in Vietnam, the story of stadium flares has never been anyone's alone. It is the story of the organisers, the clubs, the security forces, and above all — of those sitting in the stands whose opinions were never sought.

What actually happens when a flare is lit

I have sat close enough to smell gunpowder mixed with sweat and beer. It is a particular smell — unlike anything else in sport. Sweet, pungent, clinging to your jacket all night.

From my observation across many seasons, flares in V.League appear in three forms. First, the stick flare — long, handheld, burning 40 to 90 seconds, emitting thick smoke. Second, the ball flare — thrown, fast-burning, high-temperature, usually used in goal celebrations. Third, the smoke flare — least dangerous but most obstructive to visibility.

All three are banned under Vietnam Football Federation regulations and the Fire Prevention and Fighting Law. But a ban on paper and the reality in the stands are two different worlds.

The problem lies in this: flares are not brought into the stadium through security checkpoints. They are brought in beforehand, hidden on the body, in bags, or simply passed through loosely controlled areas. In a match with 15,000 spectators, four entry gates and twenty security staff, the detection rate for a 30 cm object hidden in a jacket is very low. I once watched a security guard check 12 people in 5 minutes — under 2.5 per minute.

The striking figure is not the number of flares lit, but the gap between regulation and enforcement capacity. A ban without a commensurate control system is merely a moral reminder.

I remember a time at Pleiku Stadium, 2026 season. HAGL – SLNA. Stand B erupted with five flares at once. The referee stopped the match. Players withdrew down the tunnel. The crowd stayed. And I — in the commentary cabin, about 60 metres from the stand — heard a child cough. A small cough within the noise, but it startled me. I turned my binoculars. A woman was holding a child of about 4, hand covering the small face, feet moving down the stairway. They left before the match resumed.

Three years later, I still think about that child. Not out of pity. But because I asked myself: who is responsible for the moment it had to cover its face at a football ground?

Why flares cannot be only a supporters' problem

There is an easy narrative I refuse: blaming hardline supporter groups. It is easy, tidy, and analytically wrong.

If only one group lights flares, and the entire stadium has no way to stop them, the problem is not that group. The problem is the system that has allowed them to exist season after season.

Look at the structure of a V.League match. There is the host club — ticket seller, revenue recipient. There is the league organiser — rule-maker. There is security — control-responsible. And there is local police — sanction-authorised.

Four parties. But none bears final responsibility when flares are lit.

I have followed international practice on stadium flares. In England, Premier League clubs are fined and/or must close part of a stand when supporters light flares. In Germany, penalties are heavier — full closure of the stand behind the goal for three matches in some cases. In Italy, supporter groups can be banned for life, and clubs bear civil liability for injuries.

In Vietnam, the most common penalty is a warning and — in serious cases — a fine of a few tens of millions of dong against the club. That sum, against the revenue of a well-attended match, is a minor cost. No penalty is heavy enough to force clubs to invest in a genuinely functioning control system — and that is the root of the problem.

But here I want to pause for a beat. Because if I only talk about penalties, I have become a report-writer — which is not what I want.

What I want to say is: flares exist because they mean something to those who light them. It is a language. A way of saying 'I am here' in a stadium where individual voice is drowned in collective chanting. When we ban flares without understanding what they say, we do not eliminate them. We push them into the dark — where they are more dangerous.

I once sat in the corridor behind Stand C at Thong Nhat Stadium, overhearing a group of young supporters after security confiscated their flares. One said: 'Without smoke, the stand looks like a market.' Another laughed. But I understood them. What they want is not fire. What they want is a moment when the whole stadium looks in one direction — something modern football has slowly taken away as it turned stands into commercial zones.

A counter-intuitive angle: don't ban smoke, change the room

If I were asked about flare policy in Vietnamese football, my answer would upset many.

I do not think the most effective measure is heavier penalties. I think the most effective measure is redesigning stand space so flares have nowhere to stand.

More specifically: most stadiums in Vietnam are designed for watching football, not for crowd management. Narrow exit routes. Steep stairways. No buffer zone between stand and track. No ventilation system. When a flare burns, the smoke has nowhere to go — it stays with the closest person.

At stadiums built or renovated to AFC standards, this problem is significantly reduced. Smoke escapes faster, visibility is preserved, and most importantly — dangerous zones are cordoned. But most V.League stadiums do not meet that standard.

This brings me to a point I have never seen anyone state: the most serious flare incidents do not happen where crowds are largest, but where infrastructure is worst. We are treating the symptom by punishing the patient, while the room still lacks windows.

The good commentator is not the one who speaks accurately. It is the one who hears before others do.

And I have heard this for a long time — in corridor conversations with stadium security staff. They know who brings flares in. They usually know beforehand. But they lack the people, the authority, the support from organisers to stop it. They choose to let it be, confiscate afterwards, and file a report. That is a compromise — not a solution.

The Cuautitlan Izcalli story shows what happens when that compromise breaks. A procession outside authorised parameters. A vehicle carrying fireworks. An explosion. A 15-year-old with no second chance. And a city council that only spoke up after the fact.

In Vietnam, we have not had an incident at that level inside a stadium. But we also have no prevention system at that level either. The distance between those two facts is not luck. It is accumulated risk.

The breath after the whistle

I return to 19/8 Stadium in memory, Round 14 night of 2026.

After the referee restarted the match, Stand H still held a thin layer of smoke. Players returned to the ball. Van Toan — number 14 — received on the right wing, turned, and I sat there, notebook open, writing nothing.

Number 14 did not run toward the goal. It ran toward those who still remember.

I thought of the 4-year-old in Pleiku, of the woman carrying it down the stairs, of the small cough in the noise. I thought of the security guard checking 12 people in 5 minutes. I thought of four parties with no final responsibility. I thought of a procession in Mexico, a vehicle, an explosion, a 15-year-old.

And I thought of what Vietnamese football has not done: treat the stand not only as a place to sell tickets, but as a place where people breathe.

The match ended, the pitch still breathed. And I still sat there, listening.

There is a truth that football people often forget: the stand is not an accessory to the pitch. It is part of the match. When a flare is lit, the affected are not only the lighter. It is the neighbour, the person behind, the child in a mother's arms, the elderly on a cane, and the player standing mid-pitch waiting for play to resume.

I do not write this to conclude. I write to record a silence not yet named.

If next season, in some stadium, smoke rises again and the referee pauses the match, I hope someone — a security guard, an organiser, a coach — will stop and ask themselves: what are we protecting, and whom are we forgetting.

Because football, after all, is not a safe game. It is a game we must make safe — every week, every match, every time a child sits down in the stands.

Three times I misread his name, three times I saw my own haste. I was hasty to call flares a supporters' problem, when it is the problem of everyone who let it exist.