The Thai football chief, known officially as Nualphan Lamsam, posted photographs of herself at Don Mueang airport in Bangkok before the flight and landed in Hanoi at around 10 a.m., thanking fans for getting behind the War Elephants.
She carries her familiar accessory, a Birkin bag estimated to be worth around US$25,000.
She will go to the hotel where the Thai squad are staying before heading to My Dinh Stadium, according to the Vietnam Football Federation.
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Madam Pang at Don Mueang airport in Thailand before flying to Vietnam on Aug. 26, 2026. Photo courtesy of Nualphan Lamsam |
The final kicks off at 8 p.m. Vietnam won the first leg 2-0 in Bangkok on Aug. 22, so Thailand must win by three goals to take the title and by two to force extra time.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Secretary General Mattias Grafström will also attend, arriving at Noi Bai by private jet on the afternoon of Aug. 26 and visiting the VFF’s headquarters before kickoff, the federation said.
Infantino was last at this final in January 2023, when he presented silver medals to Vietnam’s players after they lost to Thailand at Thammasat Stadium.
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FIFA President Gianni Infantino is greeted by the VFF President Tran Quoc Tuan at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi, Aug. 26, 2026. Photo by VFF |
Born in 1966, Madam Pang is a fifth-generation descendant of the Lamsam family, which founded Kasikornbank and remains one of Thailand’s wealthiest.
She has been president and chief executive of Muang Thai Insurance since 2014 and sits on the boards of Phatra Leasing and Dusit Thani.
She is the first woman to lead a national football association anywhere in Asia, elected FAT president in February 2024 with roughly 93% of the vote.
Before that she served as head of delegation for Thailand’s national teams from August 2021 to January 2024, a period in which she paid out about THB55.8 million (US$1.71 million) in bonuses, according to Siam Sport.
Thailand won back-to-back regional titles under her, at the 2020 and 2022 editions of the tournament, then known as the AFF Cup.
Madam Pang arrives in Hanoi on Aug. 26, 2026.
The Birkin is the thing Madam Pang is known for outside football. She founded Saint-Honoré (Bangkok), the house’s Thai distributor, in 1997, and has since assembled one of Asia’s most conspicuous collections of its rarest work.
Her five Faubourg Birkins, a crocodile-and-calfskin line modeled on the facade of the Hermès flagship on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, are together worth about US$1.3 million, according to Tatler Asia.
The most recent of them, the Rainy Days, was priced at $245,000 by the reseller Madison Avenue Couture when she carried it at Paris Fashion Week in March last year. A new Birkin in classic leather retails from $13,500.