Chan in a fix over tickets

The organisers of the 2014 African Nations Championship (Chan) do not know how many tickets have been sold for the troubled tournament days before its kickoff.

When asked about ticket sales for a tournament which starts on Saturday, the Local Organising Committee's chief communications officer, Sipho Sithole, gave contradictory responses. He first reply was that he was not allowed to release an overall ticket sales figure. Later, Sithole said that the LOC did not have ticket sales available.

This sparks fears that ticket sales, a week before the opening game between Bafana Bafana and Mozambique at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday, have been poor.

Asked this week for the figure, via email, Sithole responded: "We are not allowed to do so until next week at least."

He said this was because the LOC had not yet requested ticket sales from Computicket.

"We are not in a position to provide that figure because we have not conducted our consolidation yet," Sithole said.

"We have been focusing on getting people to Computicket to buy tickets.

"We have been waiting for the first phase of discount ticketing sales to end before we consolidate and request the figure."

An employee in Computicket's client services, Lauren Barker, who deals with such requests, said: "It is not a laborious process."

Chan tickets range from R40 to R70 for the group stages, mostly for double headers, and up to R200 for the opening match and final. They have been sold at a 20% discount from late November until today, as an incentive to buy early.

The Chan - designed to showcase Africa's local-based talent - came to SA as part of a package with the Africa Cup of Nations last year.

The far less glamorous Chan is a problematic sell as it does not feature any of Africa's Europe-based stars.

Representatives of the three host cities admitted to the challenge of selling an event that includes national squads made up mostly of unknown players.

Cape Town, Polokwane and Bloemfontein were made hosts after missing out on Afcon.

Bafana coach Gordon Igesund admits that preparations for the tournament have been tough, but is confident South Africa can claim glory on home soil.

Challenges facing Igesund ahead of the opening game against Mozambique on Saturday are squabbles over the selection of his squad, the late start to their camp when most other nations have played three or more friendly matches and an opposition that he knows little about.

Tougher assignments against Nigeria and Mali will follow, and Igesund is under no illusions about the challenges his side faces. "It hasn't been ideal, obviously. Everybody can see that," Igesund said. "I have only got the players at a very late stage. The other teams in our group have played three or four friendly matches already, and been together for longer.

Igesund confirmed that he is trying to arrange a practice match on Tuesday night against one of the other teams in the competition not in Bafana's group - which would probably come from Group B, also based in Cape Town, and which includes Zimbabwe, Morocco, Burkina Faso and Uganda.

The coach admits that sourcing information on the pool- stage opponents has been difficult given that many of the players do not feature for their full national sides.

"It has not been easy, obviously with them being locally based players. But we have been doing some things. Certain teams have got eight or nine players from a single club and we have been studying DVDs of those clubs.

Safa yesterday reached an agreement with Chiefs, in principle, that five players - Itumeleng Khune, Siphiwe Tshabalala, Bernard Parker, Tsepo Masilela and Tefu Mashamaite - will be released to join Bafana today.

This was confirmed by Safa CEO Dennis Mumble.

However, there was an issue over two players - one believed to be leftback Tsepo Masilela - with injury knocks who were still being discussed by Igesund and Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter.