The Ho Chi Minh City Football Federation (HFF) will pay its women's club 5,000 US dollars (about 130 million dong) for every draw and 10,000 dollars (about 258 million dong) for every win in the group stage of the AFC Women's Champions League 2026/27 in India. HFF general secretary Tran Dinh Huan announced the bonuses at a send-off meeting on the morning of 28 October, Tuoi Tre and SGGP reported.
Group B fixtures
The group stage takes place in India from 1 to 7 November, according to SGGP. HCMC's games in Group B:
| Date | Opponent |
|---|---|
| 1 November | East Bengal (India, hosts) |
| 4 November | April 25 (North Korea) |
| 7 November | Hwacheon KSPO (South Korea) |
The top two in each group plus the two best third-placed teams across the three groups reach the quarter-finals, according to Tuoi Tre. Winning all three games would bring the club 30,000 dollars in total from the HFF, Bongda24h calculated. Bongda24h describes Hwacheon KSPO as the Korean champions, while SGGP called it a difficult group because the South Korean and North Korean sides are very strong and East Bengal have home advantage and a group of foreign players.
Third straight continental campaign
This is the club's third consecutive appearance in the competition as Vietnam's representative, SGGP reported. HCMC reached the semi-finals in 2024/25 and the quarter-finals in 2025/26, when they lost 3-0 to North Korea's Naegohyang. Unlike before, they have no home advantage this time because Thong Nhat Stadium, which meets the standard for international events, is under renovation.
At the send-off, Nguyen Nam Nhan, deputy director of the city's Department of Culture and Sports, congratulated the team on winning the 2026 national women's championship, its eighth title in a row and 15th overall. He said that playing at high intensity in India and then returning for the 2026 National Sports Games would be a big test, but that determination makes anything possible in football.
Coach Doan Thi Kim Chi told Tuoi Tre that the team is in a fairly strong group but has set the quarter-finals as its target.
Squad and preparations
Alongside Brazilian forward Joelma Gabriel, the club has added two US nationals, Siddiqi Kayla Marie and Chesna Rielly Marie, for the continental campaign. Because Kim Chi does not yet hold the coaching licence required by the AFC, the club registered former Vietnam goalkeeping coach Nguyen Duc Canh as head coach, although Kim Chi still does the actual work, Tuoi Tre reported. SGGP noted that several key players are getting older, which makes the foreign reinforcements important.
What comes next
The team was scheduled to fly out at 20:10 on 28 October, with a two-hour transit at Suvarnabhumi airport in Thailand before landing in Kolkata, leaving three days to adapt to the climate and pitches before the opener against East Bengal on 1 November. More coverage is on the Vietnam football news page.