SEA Games 2019: training on the street; sleeping on function room floors; wrong hotels – Philippines scramble to clean up mess
- Malaysia and Cambodia play out a 1-1 draw with no scoreboard in the stadium as teams complain of poor facilities and inadequate food
- The Thai team were forced to practise on the street because of the distance from their hotel to the training pitch
Thailand’s football team were forced to train on the street, Timor Leste players were taken to the wrong hotel, while foreign journalists were made to rifle through a pile of media passes left on a table to find their accreditation.
These are the reports coming out of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in the Philippines, before they have officially opened.
Cambodia’s footballers complained they had to sleep on the floor of their hotel’s function room because the rooms were not ready and Myanmar athletes were left waiting at the airport for hours.
Visiting teams are grumbling about the chaos they have encountered on arrival in Manila for the Games, which start on Saturday and run until December 11 – prompting an early apology from the organisers.
“We sincerely apologise to our athlete guests from East Timor, Myanmar and Cambodia for the inconvenience caused to them by the confusion regarding their transportation and hotel arrangements,” the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organising Committee (PHISGOC) said in a statement this week.