Thai organisers take heat for promotional shortcomings but vow event will be a success
Organisers of the Thailand-hosted SEA Games 2025 have been facing widespread public criticism for missteps ranging from online promotion to on-the-ground management.
They have admitted that the project has been facing challenges, but assured the public that they are confident everything will go smoothly once the regional sports showcase opens next Tuesday.
The criticism has mounted since last month, with people asking if the atmosphere ahead of the Southeast Asian Games was too quiet, and if the country was truly ready for the events.
Tourism and Sports Minister Atthakorn Sirilatthayakorn has affirmed the government has been promoting the event vigorously ahead of the opening ceremony that will take place in Bangkok on Dec 9.
He said he believed sports fans are already well-informed, with additional campaigns ongoing to catch the attention of the wider public.
However, he conceded that in the past couple of months, Thailand had been facing many challenges, such as the severe flooding in Songkhla province, and people to as well as the media had shifted their interest.
Songkhla was scheduled to be one of three SEA Games locations before the disaster forced all events previously scheduled there to be relocated to Bangkok.
That leaves Bangkok and Chon Buri as the host provinces for the events that will run until Dec 20.
The official SEA Games Thailand 2025 website, meanwhile, got a failing grade for a sports programme apparently done in Microsoft Excel, with a Google Drive link attached if people wanted to see more.
Comments from netizens poured in, saying the announcement looked unprofessional. The page administrators later deleted the post, and audiences can now check the sports schedule and results more easily.
AI-generated content also got a big thumbs-down. On Wednesday, a poster to advertise the 33rd SEA Games Virtual Run was widely shared online, attracting more negative feedback.
With the work clearly generated by AI, some commenters said it was not wrong to adopt the technology, but it should have been done more properly with quality prompts and further adjustments by human creators. (Story continues below)
Some of the criticised features on the poster were floating elements, a background-sunken logo and nonsensical heading text.
The poster has now been removed from the official page but that didn’t stop social media commenters from asking how much of the other posted content was generated by AI as well.
More criticism erupted on Wednesday evening when speakers at Rajamangala National Stadium in Bangkok failed to play the national anthems before the football match between Laos and Vietnam, forcing the athletes to sing out loud without a soundtrack.
Kongsak Yodmanee, governor of the Sports Authority of Thailand, said in an interview with Morning News TV3 on Thursday that the problem was a technical glitch, and staff were shocked and confused as everything was fine during rehearsals.
The officials have sent apology letters to the teams of Laos and Vietnam, he said.
Other elements shown at the stadium also displeased the audience: a huge banner showing a list of sponsors blocked the view of the cauldron display, and floodlights looked like they were not fully installed.
Mr Kongsak said he had ordered staff to fix all these issues.
He admitted that budget management for the project had been quite challenging as well.
“Thailand has a smaller budget than the Cambodia-hosted SEA Games had in 2023,” he said, adding that was partly because Thailand already has more resources for organisation.
“The issue is not about the SEA Games itself but rather about the sports sector receiving less government support than it ideally should,” Mr Kongsak said.
Moving events from flood-hit Songkhla to Bangkok also required additional funds, estimated at 160 million baht, he added.
Another underlying problem was the country’s political uncertainty. When changes occur, policies shift and operational work changes too.
The current government is strongly committed to ensuring everything goes smoothly after stepping in just three months prior to the opening, Mr Kongsak said.
Thailand is hosting the SEA Games for the seventh time, having staged them in 1959, 1967, 1975, 1985, 1995 and 2007.
Credit https://www.bangkokpost.com/sports/3150148/bumps-on-the-road-to-sea-games-2025
