Bafana game in ticket sale crisis
The South African Football Association and Stadium Management face a desperate race to get fans to attend Saturday's 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifier against Burkina Faso at FNB Stadium.
Bafana Bafana fans. (Photo by Anesh Debiky/Gallo Images)
Stadium Management CEO Jacques Grobbelaar confirmed to Phakaaathi on Tuesday that only 300 tickets had been sold for the game.
“It is very disappointing, we have had extensive meetings over the last couple of days and are working on this,” said Grobbelaar.
The organisers have now halved ticket prices, from R100 to R50, in an attempt to attract more fans to the stadium.
READ: Khune declares himself fit for Bafana duty
Bafana games in Johannesburg have been notoriously badly attended over the past few years, with more and more matches taken away from the country’s financial capital.
Grobbelaar said that both Stadium Management and the South African Football Association were on marketing drives to attempt to get more people to buy tickets over the next few days.
“It was pay-day over the weekend and we have to look at tendencies for people buying tickets,” he said.
“Usually the big spend does happen three or four days before an event.”
Grobbelaar added that the reduction in ticket prices was done in mind of the fact that there is a Soweto derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates at FNB Stadium on October 21.
“We are now selling (Bafana) tickets at R50 and parking tickets at R20, the derby has been moved back to October 21 and we want people to be able to go to both. If people have to choose between the derby and Bafana, their first choice will be the derby. We have already sold 6000 tickets for that. We thought if we reduce the tickets for Bafana, we can entice people to go to both.”
ALSO READ: Nigeria fined R423k for crowd disorder
