source: gmanews.tv
The Philippine Football Federation has asked its ticket retailer, TicketWorld, to review its records last Saturday to determine if there were sales of tickets for the July 28 World Cup Qualifiers match between that might be invalidated.
Bonnie Ladrido, PFF treasurer and chairman of the local organizing committee for the 2014 World Cup Qualifiers, assured football fans Monday that their complaints about TicketWorld outlets selling more than the 10 tickets per transaction limit are being addressed.
"The PFF will look into the circumstances of these incidents and will consider invalidating these transactions should these be warranted," Ladrido said.
The ranking PFF official also said they have asked "fan sites and media to help gather specific information as to the complaints."
Ladrido took particular note the complaint of a Tom Balibag who vented his "frustration" through a post on Facebook.
"Does PFF know how it feels coming from outside Manila, be early, fall in line like a civilized person then end up with nothing coupled with simple reasons, "naka hold po yung ticket or ubos na po" or urging you to buy the more expensive one available?" Ladrido quoted Balibag.
Ladrido said there is not much the PFF can do about allegations on scalping. He also went on to clarify that the transaction ceiling was set "to lessen the opportunity for unscrupulous buyers to accumulate tickets." He said there is "absence of regulatory deterrent."
However, in Quezon City at least, City Ordinance SP-494 5-97 makes ticket scalping illegal within the city's limits.
In a phone interview with GMA News Online, TicketWorld office manager Dolly Sewell shared that after a person buys the maximum 10 tickets, there is no rule against falling back in line to purchase more.
"Pwede kung may natira pa. Pero the Php 200-300 tickets sold out fast," added Sewell.
Ladrido said the PFF expected demand for the Azkals match tickets to be 10 times greater than the 13,000 seats available at the Rizal stadium.
"Given our experience in our previous match, we had reason to expect that the tickets that were made available for sale yesterday would be sold out and sold out within a short period of time. There were three major factors not present in the previous experience that contributed to the way events unfolded last Saturday," Ladrido said.
The PFF official cited the reasons for high ticket demand. "The first is that the performance of our team in the first match undoubtedly encouraged more fans to want to watch the game at the Rizal Memorial Stadium. Second, the atmosphere that people saw and felt while watching the first match on TV appear to have pushed more fans to want to watch the game live."
Ladrido added that the setting ticket release on Saturday, instead of Friday, "may have allowed more people to have the opportunity to buy tickets without having to take time off from work." — with Renee Fopalan/RSJ, GMA News
source: gmanews.tv
No comments:
Post a Comment