Minister denies hiring designer amid SEA Games ceremony controversy
The Sports and Tourism Minister responded to the controversy over the cancelled SEA Games ceremony design, insisting that no hiring contract was ever made with the designer or his team.
The drama began after Thai visual and lighting designer Rueangrith “Ton” Suntisuk shared on December 2 that he and his team had been working on the opening and closing ceremony designs for SEA Games 2025 for more than seven months. However, the project was suddenly taken over by another team without any explanation.
According to Ton, the official who had been in contact with him stopped responding in October. He later discovered that another team had begun working on the project. Despite his efforts to seek clarification, he received no reply from any government agency.
Ton decided to halt all his work and cancel arrangements with performance teams he had contracted for the ceremonies. He said the incident did not affect his business financially but left him deeply disappointed, as all the creative ideas and efforts were wasted.
His post sparked widespread discussion online. Many people in the creative industry expressed sympathy and criticised the government’s working processes for being overly complicated and lacking transparency.
Yesterday, Sports and Tourism Minister, Atthakorn Sirilatthayakorn, addressed the issue at a press conference, saying the accusations damaged him because he was blamed without any opportunity to clarify the matter.
Atthakorn insisted he had no knowledge of Ton’s involvement and that no hiring was made by the ministry at that period.
He explained that he assumed his role on October 1, and at that time, the budget for the SEA Games had not yet been approved. The budget for the opening and closing ceremonies, totalling 450 million baht, was only approved in mid-October.
Atthakorn said it would have been impossible for any official to contact or hire Ton’s team before the budget approval. According to Channel 7, he stated…
“If the designer claims he worked on the project for seven months and spoke with any state agency, then he must be able to identify who he spoke to. The ministry never appointed any team or carried out any hiring during that period.”
The SEA Games controversy did not end there. Netizens recently criticised the event’s official Facebook page for using incorrect national flags in the football and futsal match schedule between Indonesia and Thailand, placing the flags of Laos and Vietnam instead.
The page also drew backlash for using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate an image to promote the SEA Games virtual run activity.
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