The agony of buying soccer tickets 

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 09:01:30 +0000

By GRACE CHAILE-LESOETSA

SOCCER fans were yesterday subjected to long hours of standing to buy tickets for the second under-20 Africa Cup of Nations game between Zambia and Mali at National Heroes Stadium today.

The fans lined-up as early as 06.00 hours with the hope of buying the tickets before they sold out.

By 09.00 hours tickets at Manda Hill Shoprite outlet which were being sold for K10 and K20 were completely sold out.

At the same venue long queues for tickets for Saturday’s match between Zambia and Egypt formed part of the ticket buying frenzy.

At Matero and Cairo Road Shoprite outlets tickets ran out by midday much to the disappointment of fans who had formed up long queues early in the morning.

The 60,000 capacity National Heroes Stadium is today again expected to be completely filled up.

Chrispin Lupoba who was the 65th person on the queue at Matero Shoprite called on FAZ to sell tickets in other chain stores.

“Why is FAZ selling tickets only in Shoprite causing people to spend half of their day on the queues? The process of buying the ticket is quite slow because we only have one or two people attending to us,” he said.

Jack Shimindi complained that there was no order in the manner in which to buy tickets at Matero outlet.

“Some people are getting into fights just to find their way in. There is no order hence we are subjected to standing for long hours in queues. And sadly right now K10 tickets have run out and I am not sure if I will manage  to buy a K20 one,” Shimindi lamented.

Meanwhile, FAZ communications manager Desmond Katongo advised the fans to buy Saturday’s tickets in advance to avoid last minute pressure.

“We are happy with the continued support the soccer fans are giving the young boys. They have shown commitment as the 12th player on the pitch and this gives the boys the courage to fight on,” he said.