The Indian Super League (ISL) kicked off just over 2 months ago, amidst glitz and glamour from various facets from sports and entertainment in India headlining the event.
Now, heading into the final stages of the competition, the country has grasped the beauty of the game, the excitement surrounding the sport and people in India finally seem enthusiastic about football.
But what if these passionate football fans are being cheated? They follow their favorite team religiously but are deprived from a chance of watching their team play live in the stadium? From years now, people have slated the low standards of Indian football down to the fact that the fans are not interested in the Football and love Cricket better. But today that the audience has embraced the game of Football but the authorities are supposedly hampering the popularity of the sport.
Recent reports have surfaced that authorities in Goa have made some shady arrangements with respect to the ticket-sales that have happened for the home matches of FC Goa.
Earlier there were reports that the ticket prices were hiked after the initial matches. It was alleged to be nothing more than a profit-making gimmick by the local fans. Though the fans at Goa were loyal enough to stick with their club ignoring the price hike, the increase in the rates was dubious to say the least.
Soon after that, reports broke out saying there were people in Goa who bought tickets in bulk and sold it at an even higher price to the fans who couldn’t manage to get tickets due to unavailability of the same.
In the last home match against North East United, it was reported that many fans with legitimate tickets were not allowed to enter the stadium as some people made a ‘Back-door entry’ into the stadium paying minimal bribe to the cops.
It is said that the ticket collectors did not tear few tickets at the entrance and just took it and told people to go ahead. When questioned about the ticket, the cops at the gate apparently nodded at each other handing back a different pass which had already been cut.
There were people who could not get in even though they had tickets. There was a huge mess outside the stadium. People were being crushed. People who did not have tickets were waiting in-line and trying to con their way in.
Following this debacle, today the ticket-sales for the home leg of FC Goa versus Atletico de Kolkata in the semi-finals of ISL was labeled as a ‘BIG SCAM’ by the local football fanatics.
There were people waiting in queue from as early as 6am in the morning in the anticipation of getting tickets to watch their team FC Goa play at home for one last time this ISL season. But most of the people waiting for long hours were left frustrated as they were told that all the tickets were sold out.
A fan present at the scene said that by a rough estimate the crowd outside the stadium would not have been more than 2000-2500. Since the pre-decided number of tickets per person was 3 tickets per head, there could not possibly have been more than 6000-7500 tickets sold.
A guy who was there from 7am got no tickets when only 200-300 people were ahead of him in the queue. There were supposedly a bunch of kids in Panjim who stood in the queue from 6 a.m. got tickets as soon as the counter opened and sold the tickets for 1k each, in front of the cops that too. Apparently a few people got tickets and then they claimed that the tickets were over.
To add to the woes, the online booking from a reputed website was turned out to be misleading too. The tickets were mostly available when tried using the website’s official app and booking tickets through the website was supposedly next to impossible. By the time fans realized this deception it was too late and the handful of tickets available online were also declared sold-out.
The locals from Goa claim that the policemen at the ticket-sales counters themselves bought some of the tickets and a huge chunk of the tickets have been reserved for political leaders. Reportedly a total of 1000 tickets were given to local MLAs.
When people ganged up and asked the officials questions, no answers were provided. A person was slapped for recording a video by the cops. Police without their name tags were waiting for orders to Lathi charge on the masses. Some cops were even shockingly seen with guns.
Now the question remains, are the passionate football fans being robbed? And it is not just the monetary aspect of it but they are also being robbed off a chance to watch their favorite team play in the stadium. They are being robbed off their passion for the game and the love for their beloved.
A fan rightly put it as “Money and Politicians do not make a Football club, the fans do”. If India has to uplift the notion of putting football ,or any other sport for that matter, on par with Cricket then it needs some cleaning of the corrupt system.
The authorities could very well sweep this issue under the mat justifying it as a misunderstanding or a miscalculation of some sort. But regardless, the Football fanatics in Goa do deserve some sort of answer for this.