Just before the Easter break Investec Bank announced its purchase of 50,000 Confederations Cup tickets for R3, 5 million. Indeed a major boost for ticket sales to locals since the representative for the bank informed that these tickets were destined for those who would otherwise not be able to attend.
In the very same press conference Irvin Khoza, the Chairman of The Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the 2010 World Cup urged more corporates to follow Investec’s example and buy out all the remaining tickets. This should start ringing warning bells in our heads. Why does the public need freebies to lure them to soccer matches?
When local soccer was on an all-time high at the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations people didn’t need to be bribed to attend Bafana Bafana matches. People went for the spectacle that was being provided by the likes of Doctor “16 valve” Khumalo and John ‘Shoes’ Moshoeu. People went to watch entertaining and winning football.
Now things have changed. Gone is the spectacle and gone is the winning football. This is the reason no one wants to spend his or her hard-earned money on tickets for a national team match. People would rather save their money watch the action on TV.
Bafana Bafana cannot even qualify for the Africa Nations Cup anymore. Raymond Hacks excuse that not qualifying for the Nations Cup was good for the team as it would allow them more time to prepare for the Confederations Cup and World Cup without any distractions didn’t fool anyone.
No one is going to pay good money to watch an un-entertaining team losing. Even though the likes of Brazil, Italy and Spain will be there, the local team has to generate interest and be competitive in order for the tournament to be a success. This is obviously not the case with Bafana Bafana and hence the lack of demand for tickets by locals. Who is to blame? The local soccer bosses.
They failed to build on the country’s success at the 1996 African Nations Cup and consequent qualification for the 2008 World Cup in France. Since then the quality of our football has continued to slide. The development structures are not working and hence no local striker has been unearthed with the capability of scoring twenty-plus league goals per season. Instead they have tried quick-fix solutions like hiring R1, 8 million per month Brazilian coaches to perform impossible football miracles by getting our team to play world-class football within a couple of years.
These soccer bosses do not have the ability to design long-term strategies that would see our teams making significant quality leaps that would draw fans to the stadiums. It’s time for the current crop of stale minds to step aside and allow fresh blood into the running of SA soccer otherwise qualifying for even the Nations Cup will remain a dream in the foreseeable future.
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April 16, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Interesting post. Personally I think that its more a case of the fans not being able to afford the tickets and also just a general lack of interest in the Confederations Cup in general.
I mean nobody can say that they dreamt about attending the Confed Cup can they?
A lack of advertising/ marketing is also to blame in my opinion.
April 16, 2009 at 1:44 pm
The authorities have failed big time to create hype about the event, well in advance…only now they’re running around begging the corporate to support. Serious marketing should have started long time ago and this Zakumi character is a serious joke…what is that cow paid to do?