Further to my letter under subject “ISL Ticket Scandal” and published by your esteemed daily on the 4th. of December 14, I regret to point out that the action initiated by the South Goa Collector along with the concerned authorities of Indian Super League to correct the anomalies as pointed out by me only created panic demand for the semi final match between FC Goa and Atletico de Kolkata scheduled on the December 17, as the decision appears to have gone hay wire as is evident of panic demand for tickets by thousands football lovers from across Goa who braved heat, time and energy waited in the queues as early as 5 am in the early hours of morning only to find that the sales counters closed between 1 pm to 1.20 pm denying thousand of enthusiasts of buying the tickets.
I also wish to bring to the notice of public and the authorities that sales of tickets started much after 10.30 am while the online web site hardly functioned and was inoperative for almost the entire period of the afternoon and yet it was given to understand that tickets were sold out even as the queue was moving at snails pace.
The crux of the problem of the incident of December 1 match was not totally related to the availability of tickets but more of ticketless entry permitted by authorities manning the entry gates and to certain extent to black marketing. During the entire tournament tickets were nicely distributed at different places and were also available at even Café Coffee Day counters. The decision to sell tickets of the semifinal only at Fatorda Stadium and at SAG at Panjim was clearly an unwise move as the authorities failed to address the problem of how, why and at whose instant ticketless were permitted inside the stadium at the cost of genuine ticket holders.
The investigation carried out by the South Goa Collector should have given due weightage to this aspect rather than on the distribution of tickets from limited counters. In view of hardships caused to thousands of football lovers the organizers of Indian Super League must immediately publish on the newspapers and social media that the number of tickets sold at Fatorda Stadium, at SAG in Panjim or from any other counter provided along with number of tickets given to the Ministers , Members of Legislative Assembly, sponsors etc., immediately to rule out the ambiguity in the sales of tickets so as to win back trust of lovers of the game and the genuine supporters’ of FC Goa.
