SMSA urges fans to arrive early for Chiefs v Downs match

With about 70,000 spectators expected to turn up for Wednesday night's league fixture between Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns at FNB Stadium (7.30pm), Stadium Management SA (SMSA) director Bertie Grobbelaar has admitted that it'll be a big challenge to get the crowd in and out of the venue, urging people to arrive early.

Grobbelaar also conceded that it'd have been better if the match had been scheduled for a weekend. An additional 15,000 tickets were made available on Wednesday morning, following the initial 60,000 tickets being sold out.

“It's not going to be easy; it's going to be a huge challenge because you need to take into account the normal peak hour traffic as well. Some people are coming from work, going home, so it's going to be a huge challenge. The most important thing is for people to come early,” Grobbelaar told SowetanLIVE on Wednesday midday.

“Definitely [that the game was going to be better suited for the weekend].”

However, Grobbelaar also revealed that they have beefed up security and have sufficient police to manage the crowd. 

“The operational plans are in place and there is enough security. There is another element to this crowd behaviour that also plays a role,'' the SMSA boss assured.

“We can't expect the police and security services to control the behaviour of the crowd. The plea is for the people to be co-operative and be patient. You can't get all of these people in seconds, so there is going to be a queue.”

Quizzed why they didn't allocate 70,000 tickets from the onset, Grobbelaar said: “First of all, it is not only the stadium that decides that the ESSPC [Event Safety and Security Planning Committee] decides on historical events on the date, time, normally a week before the fixture. You know what the difference in cost is, if you plan for R60,000 and only 40,000 tickets get sold, it's a loss of R500,000.”

Grobbelaar also reasoned that operational costs influenced the decision to initially sell 60,000 tickets.

“Everything increases, JMPD [Johannesburg metro police department] medical, safety and security. It's a fine line to find a balance between what you put up on sale and your operational planning. It would have been great if, let's say, for example, JMPD offices were not paid for and it was a free service,'' Grobbelaar said.

“But we need to find a commercial balance to clean your operational plan and what you do there the actual number you put on sale. It's the end of the month as well so we need to look at that as well, that's why we decided to go to 60, 000.”

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