Facilities are not yet synchronous
After football, volleyball is a sport that Vietnamese people are particularly interested in. In the past 3 years, fans have witnessed Vinh Yen Stadium (Phu Tho), Dai Yen Stadium (Quang Ninh), Ninh Binh Stadium (Ninh Binh), Dong Anh Stadium (Hanoi) ... organizing a number of international volleyball tournaments. The common point of these locations is the facilities for the competition: The campus is spacious, with enough seats to serve fans to cheer live.
However, the operation of the stadium must still be effective every year instead of only aiming for a few separate tournaments. Sports expert Nguyen Hong Minh (former Director of the Department of High Performance Sports 1, General Department of Physical Education and Sports) once analyzed: "We have the facilities of new multi-purpose athletes built in preparation for the 2003 SEA Games. This is a period when Vietnamese sports are fully prepared with facilities.
However, in addition to organizing competitions, the gymnasium needs to promote its function of serving people practicing sports, not just for high-performance sports. The big problem at present is the lack of synchronous facilities right from the planning. The stadium needs to be linked to accommodation areas and hotels to serve tournaments, but in reality, very few places meet this requirement.
Need to use regularly instead of just organizing tournaments
Vietnam is regularly organizing sports tournaments for more than 50 sports. When sports develop a plan to organize, Federations, Associations and departments (Vietnam Department of Physical Education and Sports) will all look for a gymnasium or stadium that meets the requirements before deciding.
When preparing for the 31st SEA Games (May 2022), the Vietnam Department of Physical Education and Sports reviewed and evaluated the overall facilities of the sports industry and then selected athletes to ensure the requirements for organizing the competition. There have been 43 locations for organizing competitions at the 31st SEA Games.
In addition to football, volleyball or golf... needing a place to organize specific expertise, many high-performance sports can take place at multi-purpose gymnasiums if they ensure technical requirements. Specific evidence is that My Dinh indoor Athletics Palace (Hanoi) has regularly hosted many tournaments in tennis, futsal, billiards, pickleball, boxing, martial arts, badminton, etc.
When constructing and designing, the technical unit calculated the versatility of the goal of being a complex venue for many sports. The next example is Tien Son Sports Palace (Da Nang). In 2024, this place successfully hosted the 2024 Asian Taekwondo Championship. With a capacity of 6,500 seats, this location has just effectively organized and created a buzz for the PPA Tour Asia 2025 International Pickleball Tournament.
However, for national sports to develop and reach their peak, we still need a modern, high-class stadium to become the destination of a top international tournament. Currently, My Dinh National Sports Complex (Hanoi) does not have a multi-purpose gymnasium despite having a 40,000-seat stadium and a standard water sports area.
The data report of the Vietnam Department of Physical Education and Sports at the Conference on orientation for developing high-performance sports by 2030 shows: The land area for sports in localities across the country is 25.726.2 hectares, the armed forces is 1.016.1 hectares. The land area for sports reaches 2.67m2/person".
In reality, as Mr. Nguyen Hong Minh acknowledged, the facilities must be well operated when put into use instead of only taking place tournaments at specific times.
