State Sport Centres - MSAC — Local services in Melbourne

This is an olympic standard venue with incredible pools, courts and classes. Even the gym is pretty decent and not too busy in most occasions.

Many elite athletes use this venue on a daily basis. Unfortunately, as a member and non-elite athlete, you can’t stop feeling like an afterthought.

It’s not rare to have most pools and lanes in use for squads, swimming lessons, many competitions and championships. Members are offered only 2 lanes for laps in the whole facility at times, including recreational users as well. There are occasions in which the indoors 25m pool is the only one available for laps for all the members with some lanes being occupied by people not doing any laps at all - despite having another pool 10m away just for play - the staff don’t ask these people to change pools.

Despite having a lot of staff, things can still take weeks to be sorted out. Our car kept being looked inside the car park because the machine would not read our plate for a month until this issue was fixed.

You can enjoy multiple different group classes in this place. However unless you are retired or work in an industry that allows you 2 hours break during working hours it’s hard to attend most of them. For the rest of us you gotta compete with all other members for the non-working hours classes and book it quick enough before everyone else. And this has to be done weekly as the system opens weekly.

Another unfortunate situation was being followed to the showers by another person for months. Initially it was ignored thinking this could only be a coincidence, but after way over 10times and being followed to different showers in the facility it just seemed odd and wrong. We have reported it multiple times, but apart from senior staff trying to find out who this person was not sure much else was done. Reporting was hard as well, having to retell the same story for multiple different people and at one time being encourages to use the family cubicles not the usual showers as if the problem was on the victim instead of the perpetrator. Not ideal and showed lack of protocol for situations like this.

This person still around, on and off the showers. Although this is not a crime I guess, it just impacts your experience in a place as great...

I had a very unpleasant experience of getting entering the venue on Sunday afternoon. I have been using a screenshot of covid vaccination cert to enter all the public and private venues throughout Victoria but was not allowed to get in MSAC as i wan unable to find a PDF of the cert on my mobile. The guy at the front entrance for checking-in, the female supervisor and the male centre manager on duty today didn't provide any supportive advice to put effort into helping a visitor to access the venue, except insisting me to log in mygov to get my cert. I don't remember the log in details to mygov but asked them if they can check my ID to see if it matches the details on the cert, or take a record, but they just didn't allow me to go in. I had spent an hour to try to find a way that I could access to my vac cert on the phone or online but they forced me to leave the venue with the reason that I had spent too much at the entrance. I asked them if they could show me the government's police or guideline that how much time that a person is allowed to spend on finding their vac cert to entre a public venue. They said they didn't have but i needed to leave.

I really can't image how poor the customer service and management culture at this venue and was absolutely disappointed with today's experience. Unrespectful and unsupportive customer service and management team!

Later on, I found I saved a PDF on my laptop and then i got approval of entry by another boy who was shifted to duty at the front gate. However, the crew who were stopping me to enter the venue still wanted to check if I did have a PDF version of my cert. Even awful and unprofessional, the male manager said to me that I needed to pay at the service desk for just entering the venue!

MSAC is an iconic venue of sport in Melbourne. However this was the services and management that they provided to their customers and visitors! I am ashamed...

I am writing to express my absolute outrage and disbelief that MSAC one of Melbourne’s premier sporting facilities does not provide tampons or pads anywhere in the entire centre.

It is completely unacceptable that in 2025, a public facility that promotes health, fitness, and equality in sport can overlook something so essential to half of its members. Menstrual products are not optional. They are a basic human necessity, just like toilet paper or soap. The fact that they are not available at all in such a large and well-resourced facility is beyond disappointing it is shameful.

What made the situation even worse was the response I received when I asked about it. The man at the front desk looked shocked and almost grossed out when I asked if there were any tampons or pads available. That reaction was completely unprofessional, and shows just how out of touch MSAC’s staff training clearly is when it comes to women’s needs. Why should anyone feel embarrassed or judged for asking for something so basic and natural?

This incident highlights a bigger issue the ongoing inequality and disregard for women in sport. Female athletes and recreational users are expected to perform, train, and compete under the same standards as men, yet facilities like MSAC still fail to provide even the most fundamental support for them. How are young girls meant to feel welcome or respected in sport when the institutions around them treat menstruation as something “gross” or taboo?

This is not just an inconvenience it’s a reflection of outdated attitudes that have no place in 2025. If MSAC wants to promote inclusivity and equality, it starts with respecting the basic dignity of the women and girls who use...