Ho Chi Minh City in need of new stadium

Ho Chi Minh City needs a stadium replacing the deteriorating Thong Nhat Stadium in District 10 to host large sporting events, including international football matches, to satisfy fans, while the costly Rach Chiec sports complex project in Thu Duc City has lain dormant for nearly 30 years.

The new stadium will not only foster sports, tourism, and economic development in the city but also improve the spiritual life of local residents.

Over the past many years, Vietnamese national football teams' international matches were held in Hanoi and other northern provinces, such as Phu Tho, Quang Ninh, and Ha Nam, which have all good stadiums.

Ho Chi Minh City football fans have almost no chance to watch such matches in person in the city.

The city has striven to deal with long-delayed economic projects but ignored sports infrastructure, specifically the Rach Chiec sports complex.

With its available land bank, the Rach Chiec sports complex remains the most feasible project to help the southern metropolis have a stadium commensurate with its position as Vietnam's economic locomotive.

However, it is not easy to resume the project as the site clearance cost is huge.

At a meeting with secretary of the municipal Party Committee Nguyen Van Nen in August last year, the Ho Chi Minh City Football Club proposed the city weigh building a new stadium with 60,000 seats covering five hectares of land in the 13-hectare Thanh My Loi Park in Thu Duc City.

The land lot is under the management of Phu Nhuan Construction and Housing Trading Co. Ltd. and has been left unoccupied for many years.

The Thanh Long Sports Center in outlying Binh Chanh District is also a feasible solution as it covers a large area of 10.7 hectares.

President of the Ho Chi Minh City Football Federation Tran Anh Tu said the city faces a shortage of facilities for all sports, not only football.

Therefore, the investment in sports infrastructure, especially a sports complex, is vital.

It is a pity that the Rach Chiec sports complex project has yet to be executed, Tu added.

Long-stalled Rach Chiec sports complex project

The city planned the Rach Chiec sports complex project on an area of 466 hectares in 1994.

It was designed to include a 50,000-seat stadium, a football academy, and a swimming pool, among others, to host international tournaments.

The planned area was later scaled down to 212 hectares, including 180 hectares for infrastructure and technical equipment and the remaining for private enterprises’ facilities.

However, the complex remains a swamp with vacant land lots and houses of residents.

In 2017, the city wanted to resume work on the project to host the 31st Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in 2021.

The municipal People’s Committee hoped to complete the compensation and site clearance work between 2017 and 2020 at a cost of nearly VND7 trillion (US$292 million).

However, the city withdrew from hosting the event as it could not construct sports infrastructure facilities.

The biggest bottleneck of the Rach Chiec sports complex project is the incomplete compensation and site clearance, chief of the office of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Sports Lam Ngo Hoang Anh said at a meeting in August 2022.

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