TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Purchase of tickets for ‘The Beautiful Game’ ended in ugly scenes as disappointed football lovers who had queued up at the indoor stadium, Campal, here, from early Saturday morning had to do without tickets for the FC Goa game scheduled for December 17, at the Jawaharlal stadium.
Confusion erupted when eager fans were told that tickets for the Hero Indian Super League second Semi finals (second leg) were sold out, leading to chaos, forcing police to intervene, and block off the indoor stadium gates.
Arguments broke out between officials and fans seeking to buy tickets, after they were informed that there were no more tickets available, since they were apparently sold out shortly after the sales began.
“They should have at least put up a board outside the gate saying that the tickets were sold out,” Augustine Noronha told the media, asking why organizers made people queue up if tickets were sold out.
Others questioned as to how many tickets were actually kept for sale for football lovers because they claimed it is due to their support that FC Goa is doing so well.
The agitated crowd complained that they were trying to meet the Sports Authority of Goa director and other officials but nobody entertained them.
“How is it possible that the tickets got sold out so fast? If you sell three tickets per minute then in 3 hours you can sell a maximum of 250 tickets. But they closed the gates almost immediately after they opened them. This is a major racket,” a middle-aged man Ram Naik told the media. Since the police refused to give in to the crowd, some of the fans turned their ire towards the media and heckled and abused them.
However, since no solution was forthcoming, the crowd had to reluctantly disperse, unhappy over the poor ticket sale management.
