Is the World Volleyball Federation biased towards host Indonesia?

Indonesia - Ảnh 1. — The Indonesian U21 women's volleyball team's match schedule has been changed to a good time - Photo: VOLLEYBALL WORLD

On the evening of August 15, Indonesia played a match for the 9th to 16th place against Thailand. This was a match where the difference in skill level between the two teams was quite clear. The "big sister" of Southeast Asia, Thailand, won quickly in just 3 sets with the scores of 26-24, 25-19, 25-22.

This result puts Thailand in the 9th to 12th place. On the contrary, Indonesia was pushed down to the 13th to 16th place, with South Korea as their opponent.

According to the previous arrangement, this match took place at 10am on August 16. However, a surprise happened when this match was later moved to… 7pm.

In return, the match between the US and Croatia was scheduled to take place at 7pm. But then it was moved to a very early time slot of 10am.

This is a very confusing decision from the organizers as well as the World Volleyball Federation. However, there is a hypothesis to explain this strange change.

10am is not a "good" time, because that is when many people are busy with work or taking care of their families. Therefore, it is difficult to arrange time to go cheer for volleyball.

Meanwhile, 8pm is a very reasonable time, even called "golden time". Most people are free at this time to watch and cheer for their favorite team.

Indonesia is the host team of the 2025 FIFA U-21 Women's Volleyball World Cup, so they have the largest and most passionate fan base. The matches they attend are often full, while the rest of the matches have almost no such image.

The 10am match could potentially affect the number of spectators entering the stadium. The organizing committee, including the host country Indonesia, certainly does not want that to happen, because they earn a lot of money from ticket sales and related services.

At the same time, the strong cheering in the stands is also an extremely important advantage for the home team. Many world fans suspect that for these reasons, the World Volleyball Federation has given Indonesia preferential treatment so that they can compete at 8pm.

The change in match time will certainly affect the preparation plans of the remaining teams, including the US and Croatia, because there is less time to rest.

Many matches have had their times changed.

Not only were the two matches between Indonesia - Korea and USA - Croatia changed. FIVB also adjusted the schedule of many matches.

Specifically, the match between Puerto Rico and Serbia was moved from 1pm to 10am. The Czech Republic-Thailand match, Brazil-Italy, was adjusted from 4pm to 1pm. The Poland-Türkiye match was moved from 1pm to 4pm. The Bulgaria-Japan match was changed from 7pm to 4pm. The China-Argentina match was changed from 10am to 7pm.

DUC KHUE

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/lien-doan-bong-chuyen-the-gioi-co-thien-vi-cho-chu-nha-indonesia-20250816125340039.htm