Many provincial stadiums in Vietnam have been left deserted and almost unusable after local football (soccer) clubs were relegated to lower-tier competitions or pulled out of the country’s highest-level league, even though they cost tens of billions of dong (VND10 billion = US$481,000).

Tien Giang Stadium has been left deserted for years.

When a football club is eliminated from the top-flight V-League, investment in the club, which comes from the state budget and corporate sponsorship, is cut or considerably decreased.
These reductions, combined with the steady drop in the number of fans attending matches due to the lack of competition, have caused many stadiums to become abandoned.
Stadiums in provinces such as Tien Giang, Kien Giang, An Giang and Dong Thap in the Mekong Delta region, and Ninh Binh in the north, have recently been left empty after their clubs were eliminated from the V-League.
Tien Giang Stadium, with over 12,000 seats, was the ‘holy land’ of local fans before 2007, when the team competed in the top-tier league of Vietnam.
It was once rated as the stadium with the best grass surface in the region.
Tien Giang authorities decided to invest VND20 billion ($961,500) to upgrade the stadium, which was always packed with fans when it hosted matches of the home team.
In the 2007-2008 season, Tien Giang were knocked out of the V-League and relegated to the First Division (the second-tier league) the following season. Their stadium has become derelict ever since, and has only opened for a handful of matches each year.
An official from the Tien Giang Sports Center, which manages the stadium, said he turns on the lighting system of the facility for around 15 minutes every week just for maintenance.
Another stadium, Cao Lanh in Dong Thap Province, has faced a similar situation over the past four months after Dong Thap FC stopped training and announced their withdrawal from V-League due to a lack of investment.
The grass at the 20,000 seat arena has not been cut since the club cannot afford to pay for it.
But the stadiums are not expected to open to the public because of the absence of investment for maintenance costs.
Kien Giang Stadium has sat desolate since Kien Giang FC were disbanded last year for financial reasons.
Shortly before the team’s dissolution, the stadium was upgraded with a VND16 billion ($769,200) lighting system.
The operations of such stadiums as An Giang and Ninh Binh have been occasionally maintained for youth competitions only

Source Tuoitre