Stadium Management SA’s (SMSA) glitchy new ticketing system disappointed again as thousands of spectators attending Saturday’s Soweto derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Stadium at FNB Stadium entered the venue with unscanned tickets.
The system is operated by SMSA’s in-house entity, MyTicket. Having proved its inefficiency since the day it was launched, when Chiefs hosted Golden Arrows at this venue in January, the new MyTicket arrangement failed the ultimate test for the sold-out Soweto derby.
Three hours before kick-off everything seemed to be smooth at the scanning points, albeit the process wasn’t as expeditious. Things started to get ugly an hour before the game started as the queues started to stretch, causing uncontrollable congestion, also made worse by a light police presence around the venue.
Same old story; the scanners at the first scanning point refused to accept valid tickets, which eventually forced the authorities to let people in without their tickets checked.
Letting people in without their tickets being scanned may have potentially averted a stampede, also ensuring that the kickoff wasn’t delayed.
Be that as it may, people with counterfeit tickets could have accessed the venue. Also, the crowd inside the stadium looked to have exceeded its capacity, with a few thousand supporters forced to watch this spectacle, which ended 3-0 in favour of the Sea Robbers, standing.
The malfunctioning of the scanning system left a multitude of fans frustrated. “This system is a mess; they must just do away with it. My ticket took five minutes to scan,” said Mandla Khumalo, a Pirates fan.
“My ticket didn’t scan at all, and they had to allow me in because they realised that it’s their scanners that are faulty. The new system is user-friendly when you buy tickets on the app, but it’s always a struggle to get into the stadium. I was here on Tuesday [when Chiefs hosted Stellenbosch], and the scanners were not working, and today [Saturday] it’s the same issue,” Koketso Mokoena, a Chiefs supporter, told SowetanLive after entering the venue.
Sowetan
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