Ho Chi Minh City

The one V.League 1 title on the record came in 2001–02, back when the club still carried the name Saigon Port, and it remains the only senior league championship the current entity claims — the police-run predecessor that lifted the trophy in 1995 belongs to a separate, now-defunct club under the same old badge. Founded in 1958 as Saigon Harbour, the side spent much of the 1980s and 1990s building a reputation under Phạm Huỳnh Tam Lang, a coach still spoken of as the man behind that generation, with Hà Vương Ngầu Nại among the players who carried it.

The Saigon Port name lasted until 2009, when the club became Ho Chi Minh City FC. That identity held for sixteen years until July 2025, when ownership passed to the Ho Chi Minh City Public Security Department and the club took its current name, Cong An Ho Chi Minh City FC — a return, in spirit if not in unbroken lineage, to a police-affiliated identity the city had known before. The Vietnam Cup won later that year was the first major trophy under the new ownership.

Thống Nhất Stadium, holding 15,000, has stayed constant through the renamings. So has the red shirt that gives the club its nickname, the Red Battleship. The fiercest rivalry belonged to an earlier era too, against Hải Quan, the Customs Department side; with that club long gone from the top flight, nothing has quite replaced it as a fixed derby, though matches against Becamex Binh Duong carry a regional edge.

Nguyễn Công Phượng and Bùi Tiến Dũng passed through in recent years before moving on. The captaincy now belongs to Nguyễn Tiến Linh, who joined in 2025 as the club tries to build a squad worthy of the cup it just won and the police backing now behind it.