The national volleyball championship must undergo a name change.

The 2026 national volleyball championship will adopt a new name: "2026 National Club Championship." This requirement comes from the Vietnam Sports Administration, as this year features the 10th National Sports Congress, so all national championships will be part of the Congress program. Therefore, if sports federations and associations still organize their annual championship tournaments, they must change the name.

This primarily affects sports that have transitioned to a professional system, with a club-based competition model rather than a regional one, necessitating the continuation of annual national championships. Football's V-League is a typical example. For volleyball, although the number of clubs truly under private ownership is minimal, it has been a professional sport for a very long time, even earlier than football.

Given volleyball's name change in 2026, many will wonder why this popular sport has never undergone a significant transformation similar to football or, more recently, basketball and pickleball.

In reality, volleyball is almost "professionally saturated." The volleyball system has two tiers for promotion and relegation, even including an annual U23 tournament. The national championship allows foreign player registration, which is not permitted in sports still using the "National Championship" title. Players are all professional athletes, going abroad to play as if it were routine.

Volleyball also boasts a diverse array of professional competitions. Besides the two rounds of the national championship, there is the Hung Vuong Cup (equivalent to the National Cup) along with a series of established tournaments like the Hoa Lu Cup hosted by Ninh Binh, akin to a scaled-down national championship.

Specifically in 2026, both rounds of the national championship will, for the first time, be conducted as a single round-robin, increasing the number of official matches to nearly 20 if the ranking stage is included. Thus, combined with cup competitions, each volleyball club could play nearly 30 matches per year, comparable to football, despite currently having only 8 men's and 8 women's teams in the top tier.

Considering the factors mentioned above, a complete transition to a professional model like football might merely be a matter of time for volleyball. However, the "professional life" of this captivating sport remains quite challenging.

Although primarily organizing the annual national championship, the Volleyball Federation still struggles to secure sponsorship for both the tournament and the national team. Even as the Vietnamese women's team continually sets proud achievements, trendy brands familiar in sports rarely venture into volleyball.

Could this be a consequence of the "wavering" in transitioning to a professional model akin to football or basketball? While all volleyball activities are professional, the clubs themselves still rely significantly on regional factors, a situation persisting since the 1980s, from the era of Dệt Thành Công, Than Quảng Ninh, Bưu điện Hà Nội, Seaprodex...

However, looking at the starting point of professionalism in football or basketball (VBA), is it really different? It was merely a "rebranding" based on a semi-professional foundation. If VBA basketball became an independent league parallel to the national basketball championship, in football, V-League essentially just changed its name while the clubs remained the same.

The issue is that after transitioning to professionalism, regulations and standards gradually evolve, so over time, clubs no longer need to depend on local budgets for development. Financial resources for operation also increase over the years; even the V-League organizing unit reported profits in recent years.

Therefore, sometimes a "name change," even if just procedural, is a detail worth pondering for those involved in volleyball. Sometimes changing a name isn't merely about renaming; it could also be a way to "ride the tiger's back," thereby focusing efforts to transform the entire volleyball system—one of the sports still expected to advance further on the international stage and influence the broader movement.