'WRONG TIME, WRONG PLACE'

Queen Mother's death, traffic jams, economic and political issues are keeping fans away

- Deepanraj Ganesan

Welcome to the half empty SEA Games. Joyous but abandoned. Competitive but often deserted.

At the Chaeng Watthana Government Complex, the venue for wushu and karate, there were more people waiting in line at the nearby immigration office than fans in the competition hall.

At other stadia, attendance has largely been limited to team officials, volunteers, family members, friends and a handful of curious locals.

Even in football, a sport so beloved in this nation which is gunning to end a gold-medal drought after eight years, the turnout has been depressing.

Large swathes of empty seats greeted Thailand's Under-22 football team as they beat Timor-Leste 6-1 in front of 7,741 fans at the 51,560-seater Rajamangala National Stadium on Dec 3. The numbers were not any better on Dec 11, when 7,896 spectators watched their 3-0 win over Singapore.

The attendance improved to 19,659 for Thailand's 1-0 semifinal win over Malaysia on Dec 16.

But, at other venues at the Dec 9-20 SEA Games, the low spectator numbers have been hard to ignore.

At the athletics events in the Supachalasai National Stadium which has a capacity of around 19,800 there has been a visibly alarming number of empty seats.

Local media reports also said that just a few hundred spectators turned out for the Thai women's football team's 8-0 victory over Indonesia at the 8,680-capacity Chonburi Stadium.

While strong crowd support was seen for badminton - especially for matches involving home favourites Kunlavut Vitidsarn and Ratchanok Intanon - and table tennis at the Thammasat University, as well as swimming at the Huamark Aquatic Center, that has not been the case for some other sports.