…says no tickets to be sold on matchday against TP Mazembe…
FCB Nyasa Big Bullets say there was massive gate fraud during their first preliminary second leg match against Equatorial Guinea’s Dragon FC on 27 August in which the gate revenue collected did not match the massive turnout from the fans.
This was disclosed during a press briefing which the club organized on Thursday morning ahead of their second preliminary first leg match against DRC’s TP Mazembe next week.
According to Chief Administrative Officer Albert Chigoga, the club realized MK46 Million instead of the targeted MK60 Million plus due to the sabotage by those entrusted to do the job on that particular day.
“We expected to realize a substantial gate revenue on that day by looking at the large crowd that gathered to watch the match.
“As a club, we would like to register our disappointment for what actually happened. We had a very good plan in place and we expected that things would run smoothly up to the very end and we expected good outcome of revenue but to our shock, things did not happen the way we had anticipated because the system was sabotaged by people we entrusted to do the job for us.
“The security we hired also underperformed because gate revenue success depends on the security. The entities we hired for access control and general match day security failed to meet the minimum standards so we are sad that it happened the way it happened.
“There was also reselling of tickets to several people because they were not torn upon entry into the facility hence generating less than the targeted MK60 million plus,” he said.
He then disclosed that as one way of avoiding a repeat of what happened against Dragon FC, the club has put some measures in order to minimize the fraud ahead of next week’s encounter.
“We have put measures to mitigate this particular problem when we are going into next week’s match on Sunday, 17 August. We want to sell all our tickets in advance, starting from this coming Sunday to Saturday next week, a day before the match. We will be communicating to the general public about it where they will actually find these tickets and for that reason, I want to emphasize that our standard tickets are sold at MK 3000.
“It happens on matchday that people bring tickets at less than the stated price, those tickets will not come from us because all our tickets have got security features that will be checked by a private security company that we have hired.
“On matchday, no tickets will be sold at the stadium because we believe that people take advantage of clubs and most of them come to the stadium when the game is about to kick off so we don’t want to create a situation where others would cease an opportunity to sabotage us. We are encouraging all our supporters and all Malawians to support us by buying their tickets in advance and upon arrival at the stadium, the police will not be responsible for checking the ticket.
“The tickets will be checked by a private security company that we have hired and they will tear it. We would like to encourage everyone who will buy a ticket to make sure that as they are entering the stadium, the ticket must have been checked and torn to avoid reselling it to someone else,” he explained.
He also added: “If we decide to sell these tickets on match day, we will sell them at MK 6000. We will double the price but not at the stadium.”
The club has printed 25 000 tickets for the advance selling.
