For a match given a questionable midweek slot, and for which attendance adjustments had to be made frequently, even on match day, it was a miracle that Kaizer Chiefs v Mamelodi Sundowns game concluded without any major incident.
At first, about 45,000 tickets were made available for the Betway Premiership fixture at FNB Stadium, but on Monday, Bertie Grobbelaar of Stadium Management SA (SMSA) told us this would be adjusted to 60,000. By Wednesday morning, hours before the match, 15,000 more tickets were made available, and even that was not enough, as they were all sold out in hours.
Could all this have been avoided? Of course, because Soccer City hosted the biggest World Cup matches in 2010 and some were in midweek. And not one was delayed because fans were stuck outside.
— Nkareng Matshe, sports editor
All this was a recipe for chaos, which, predictably, some of us were not immune to as we made our way to the Soccer City precinct.
Having departed the office about 5.30pm, I was stuck alongside dozens of other motorists attempting to join the Soweto highway, which passes past FNB Stadium. Without warning, Joburg metro police closed off the road, diverting traffic to alternative routes and, to be fair, those detours leading into the venue were well-managed.
But that was still not enough to avert the inevitable delayed kickoff, as chaos continued to brew outside the stadium. Allocated VIP parking was full and cars could be seen parking illegally on pavements and bays allocated for emergency vehicles.
Could all this have been avoided? Of course, because Soccer City hosted the biggest World Cup matches in 2010 and some were in midweek. And not one was delayed because fans were stuck outside.
However, Fifa tournament operations are well-structured. They don’t just wake up on match day to make major adjustments to allocation and suddenly avail 15,000 more tickets.
For a country that hosted what is hailed as one of the best World Cups ever, we should not be finding ourselves resorting to such amateurish acts. What pressed the PSL to fixture such a huge match in midweek, when it could have taken place this weekend? Last season, Chiefs and Downs met at FNB twice and, on both occasions, the stadium sold out at maximum capacity of 90,000.
It was predictable that demand for tickets to this match would be the same, not least because Chiefs have made an uncharacteristically good, unbeaten start to the season. A Saturday afternoon or early evening fixture would have made more sense, but who knows what makes sense in our football these days?
As this column has highlighted before, football fans remain at the bottom of the feeding chain, even when they dedicate their meagre earnings to support the local game. Putting them in the line of fire because authorities have no foresight, is deplorable. Just by glancing at last year’s attendance figures, no sober mind would have agreed to have Chiefs v Sundowns on a Wednesday night.
Earlier this year, SMSA had to overhaul its ticketing because the long-abused fan had to deal with unscrupulous scouts selling them illegitimate tickets outside venues, which nearly caused a disaster in the February Soweto Derby, which authorities confirmed had more than 10,000 fraudulent tickets.
Now, genuine fans, hungry to see one of the PSL’s more attractive fixtures, had to be sent from pillar to post with limited ticket allocations, and their sudden availability on match day, having to make last-minute plans due to the sheer incompetence of those who can’t plan.
It is sickening how fans are disregarded, expected to show up and their life put in danger – all because of the passion they have for their teams. Authorities in the only African country to host a Fifa World Cup can really do better.
SowetanLIVE
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