A results app used by amateur football leagues in Vietnam recorded three winners for a single cup final, according to a scientific paper published on Tuesday. The researchers found 1,407 matches with multiple teams marked as winners in a dataset of 62,417 fixtures, and say the software’s offline syncing may have spread incorrect results across 19 provinces.
The paper, published by the Southeast Asian Systems Review, examined records from 11 league administrators using the fictional VietField Association’s MatchLedger platform. Its authors say the app let tablets at grounds save results without an internet connection, then merged those records when they came back online—without reliably resolving conflicts between versions.
How one final gained three winners
The strangest case involved a regional cup final listed as a win for Kaiser Harbour, Orlan Rovers and Mamelon Dawn, though only two teams played. Researcher Jagoda Walczak said a stale result from an earlier round appeared to survive when a tablet reused a match record. “The app treated each saved version as valid, rather than asking which result belonged to the final,” she said.
Walczak and co-author Tarik Kastelic-Leban say the problem was not simply a matter of a wrong score. When a local tablet later synced, the platform could preserve conflicting winner entries and push them into standings, brackets and prize calculations. The paper reports 19 fixtures with three or more winners; it does not claim every disputed result led to a payment.
We found a cup final with three winners and no technical rule that could explain which one should lift the trophy.
Tarik Kastelic-Leban, researcher
The VietField Association has paused payments from a 3.2 billion dong prize pool while it checks 46 knockout fixtures flagged by the researchers. Its technology director, Karla Aitolahti, said the association had asked leagues to keep local score sheets and photographs until the records are reconciled. The affected clubs have been told not to treat app standings as final.
A fix, but no quick verdict
MatchLedger’s developer, a small software firm called FieldMetric, said it had reproduced the sync error in a test environment and was preparing a software update. It said its first review found 23 disputed results, fewer than the paper’s total, and that some entries could reflect league administrators correcting scores after matches. The company has not said when the update will be available.
The authors said they shared their method with participating leagues and did not publish names of individual players. Their count covers records that listed more than one winner, not proof that every match was wrongly decided. Kastelic-Leban said a second review by league officials is needed to distinguish genuine errors from later corrections.
For clubs that rely on small entry fees and local sponsors, the delay matters even if the final table changes only slightly. The association expects to publish a corrected bracket by 12 November, after officials compare the app records with paper score sheets. Until then, the three teams listed for the same final remain on the platform as winners.
