“Uzbekistan’s football federation sent us a list of 25 players on Friday morning, but at 8 p.m. the federation general secretary Sardor Rakhmatulev himself sent us a fax to say sorry, they can’t come.

“Now, VFF doesn’t have the time to invite another foreign team, so we will have three teams. Vietnam, Thailand and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will compete in a round robin tournament,” Tuan said.

The first, second and third teams will win US$40,000, US$20,000 and US$10,000 respectively.