Thai newspaper criticizes SEA Games Organizing Committee for Vietnam National Anthem incident

(Dan Tri) - Thai media unanimously spoke out about the incident of U22 Vietnam having to sing the national anthem without music, before the match against U22 Laos on the afternoon of December 3.

At the opening ceremony of the match, the players of the U22 Vietnam and U22 Laos teams had to sing the national anthem without music. Immediately after that, the Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT) and the Organizing Committee (OC) of the 33rd SEA Games apologized to the U22 Vietnam and U22 Laos teams.

U22 Vietnam players had to sing the national anthem without music (Photo: Khoa Nguyen).

Afterwards, Thai media also commented on this incident. Siam Sport of the land of golden pagodas wrote: “The incident of the national anthems of Vietnam and Laos not being played before the match between U22 Vietnam and U22 Laos at Rajamangala Stadium left fans bewildered. This is an unacceptable incident.”

“The Sports Authority of Thailand later said the cause was a problem with the stadium’s sound system. It is worth noting that the sound system had been tested two days before kick-off (ie on December 1),” Siam Sport added.

Also according to the Thai sports daily, the host organization is currently trying to fix the problem and avoid similar incidents from happening again.

Siam Sport informed: “After being informed of the situation, SAT Director General Kongsak Yodmanee immediately went to Rajamangala Stadium to inspect and directly resolve the problem. SAT also sent a letter of apology to the sports delegations of Vietnam and Laos.”

Meanwhile, Thailand’s leading daily newspaper Thairath commented frankly: “An incident occurred on the first day of competition of the 33rd SEA Games. The national anthems of Vietnam and Laos were not played, and the players were forced to sing the national anthems of each country without music.”

Laos U22 players also fell into the same situation as Vietnam U22 players (Photo: Khoa Nguyen).

“This incident left the fans present at Rajamangala Stadium this afternoon extremely surprised. The match between U22 Vietnam and U22 Laos is the event that marks the official start of the 33rd SEA Games in Thailand this year,” the Thairath newspaper wrote.

Not only that, the leading newspaper of the land of golden pagodas also revealed another truth, not only the sound system, but also the lighting system of Rajamangala stadium had problems right before the match between U22 Vietnam and U22 Laos.

Thairath shared information: “The problem did not stop there, it was discovered that some of the light bulbs at Rajamangala Stadium were broken right before the two opening matches of the 33rd SEA Games (U22 Vietnam vs U22 Laos at 4pm and U22 Thailand vs U22 Timor Leste at 7pm)”.

“More importantly, this stadium does not have any spare lights to replace them. The stadium organizers had to urgently borrow lights from another stadium to solve the urgent problem at hand,” Thairath added.

At this year's SEA Games, Rajamangala Stadium is the venue for the opening ceremony (December 9), closing ceremony (December 20), as well as most of the men's football matches.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/bao-thai-lan-chi-trich-btc-sea-games-ve-su-co-quoc-ca-viet-nam-20251203213046890.htm