On May 27, Bắc Ninh Provincial Police initiated prosecution against 10 people operating the Bún Chả TV website for copyright infringement under Article 225 of the Criminal Code. One person based in Hà Nội headed the operation, organizing illegal broadcasts of the English Premier League, Champions League, and numerous other sports competitions that had legally purchased broadcasting rights in Vietnam. The system attracted hundreds of thousands of visits daily. Revenue came from advertising and redirecting viewers to illegal online gambling sites. The network operated as an underground company with technical, SEO, content, commentator, and accounting divisions. Commentators alone earned between 50 and 70 million Vietnamese dong per month. On May 15, police simultaneously summoned suspects and confiscated 38 computers, 42 mobile phones, and numerous related equipment.
The network operated as an underground company — with SEO, accounting, commentators — and most network nodes unknown to each other in real life.
Analysis
Monthly salaries of 50 to 70 million Vietnamese dong for illegal streaming commentators — equivalent to approximately 2,000 to 2,800 USD — are significantly higher than the average income of mainstream sports journalists in Vietnam. This figure reveals the true scale of the illegal football viewing market, not merely an amateur hacker group.
The Bún Chả TV case exemplifies a parasitic economic model built on sports broadcasting rights. Competitions like the English Premier League spend millions of USD to purchase broadcasting rights in Vietnam — K+ and On Sports bear these costs. When illegal websites attract hundreds of thousands of views daily, the damage extends beyond lost advertising revenue to undermining the negotiating position for next season's rights.
Especially noteworthy is the operational structure: SEO, accounting, advertising divisions, and network nodes unknown to each other in real life — this is a distributed cybercrime model increasingly prevalent in Southeast Asia. The police's ability to identify and summon all 10 individuals within such an anonymous chain demonstrates significantly upgraded digital investigation capabilities compared to several years ago.
However, dismantling one network does not eliminate demand. As long as the cost of legal football viewing exceeds the payment capacity of the vast majority of ordinary Vietnamese viewers, new versions of Bún Chả TV will continue to emerge.
Diaspora Impact
Remittance senders to Vietnam monthly: This case reflects a familiar reality for many Việt Kiều families — relatives in Vietnam often watch football through illegal websites rather than subscribing to paid television packages. As these networks face successive crackdowns, pressure from family members to support legal viewing subscriptions (typically ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 Vietnamese dong monthly) may increase, creating a small but real impact on the monthly remittance budgets of over 4.5 million Vietnamese in the United States.
Vietnamese community watching football in America: In concentrated areas such as Little Saigon in Orange County or Houston, many Vietnamese commonly use similar illegal websites to watch the English Premier League rather than paid U.S. services. This arrest serves as a reminder that similar platforms are being tightened on both sides of the Pacific.