Transformation of football ticket sales system necessary: Annuar Musa

KUALA TERENGGANU: The weakness in the system of ticket sales for the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games (KL2017) football final on Monday (Aug 28) which led to a commotion at the Shah Alam Stadium, Selangor, should be taken as a lesson by the parties concerned including the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).
Kelantan Football Association (Kafa) advisor Tan Sri Annuar Musa said the FAM as the main parent body for football sports in the country must undertake a transformation of the system of ticket sales to ensure that such things would not recur especially during major matches.
"FAM must carry out transformation instead of maintaining the old system of ticket sales for football matches. Ticket sales should have been made online. When supporters buy the tickets online, they can redeem the tickets at the ticket counters. This will not take a long time.
"Presently, supporters and football fans have to line up in a long queue and wait for a long time. In fact, some who had come from afar had to set up tents in order to be at the stadium early merely to buy the tickets.
"It's okay if they get genuine tickets. But I hear some unfortunate fans had bought false tickets. This happened because the system of ticket sales was outdated," he said.
He said this to reporters at a media conference here today.
Annuar was commenting on the commotion that occurred at the Shah Alam Stadium on Monday as the 80,000 tickets allotted had been sold out within a short period.
Earlier, tens of thousands of local supporters were prepared to line up and form a five-kilometre long queue as early as 6am merely to buy tickets to watch the football final yesterday.
However, disturbances occurred when a group of supporters had forced their way and climbed over the ticket counters when ticket sales were stopped at 1pm.
FAM, however, had denied that it was responsible for the problems arising from the ticket sales system as it had handed over the responsibility to the 2017 Kuala Lumpur Secretariat (Masoc) and the Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS).
Asked on the proposal that the giving of free tickets be scrapped as it was said to be among the causes for the commotion, Annuar said he disagreed with the proposal as those who had obtained the tickets had also paid for them.
"They did not get them free. They were among the sponsors, those who had contributed significantly and involved in the football sports. It's not fair to stop it because in order to get the tickets they too had to pay the same price, not free of charge," he added. — Bernama