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Fifa drops the ball

Farzana Rasool
By Farzana Rasool, ITWeb IT in Government Editor.
Johannesburg, 16 Apr 2010

Soccer fans across the country stood in queues for hours this week, as the Fifa ticketing systems for physical and online sales went down.

This may be a show of poor South African market knowledge on Fifa's part, says an analyst.

Fifa says some fans queued overnight in the hopes of getting tickets for their desired matches, after its announcement earlier this week that there were still 500 000 tickets available, including 300 for the final.

The association had earlier agreed to drop a ruling that tickets could only be bought online or through a ballot, and allowed sales over the counter at ticket centres, in shopping malls, and at some popular supermarkets, effective from yesterday.

This was meant to make it easier for the many South Africans without Internet access or credit cards to get tickets to the event.

It was the first time fans could buy tickets over the counter and Fifa should have expected the huge response, says World Wide Worx Strategy MD Steven Ambrose.

Know your market

“My sense is that Fifa, from the very beginning, did absolutely no research on the local market and dynamics,” says Ambrose.

He explains that the first three million tickets could only be purchased through complicated processes that weren't accessible to the majority of African fans.

“Internet penetration in SA is only 10% and in other African countries only 1% or 2%. How could they not anticipate a large demand for first-time physical sales in such an environment? I just don't understand it,” says Ambrose.

He emphasises that this shows a complete failure to understand the African market and a sheer lack of strategic planning.

“This is not rocket science or an insurmountable task. It's a complete disgrace that has been shown to SA soccer fans.”

Ambrose feels this not only shows a lack of understanding, but also a “cynical lack of care for SA fans”.

“They have done this numerous times around the world and it worked. They did not understand the lack of connectivity in SA. If we had a 70% connectivity rate it would have been fine. They honestly did not care for or understand the SA market. For them it's just that the World Cup happens to be in SA.”

Disgruntled fans

People standing in queues for hours were not impressed with Fifa, or the ticketing system.

“My daughter has been here since nine this morning and she is still not through. It's now four o' clock,” says Kgomotso Moroka, who was trying her luck at the Rivonia branch of First National Bank (FNB).

Sabeeha Kaka went to the ticketing offices at 5pm, the day before they opened, and stayed overnight. “I was number 58 in the line, but when I was still waiting at five in the morning I went to the FNB, in Sandton. Here I was number 14 on the list. The systems crashed at five or ten past nine and only got running at 1pm. I was finally helped at 2:30pm and then only managed to get two of the tickets I wanted.”

Ambrose criticises Fifa's actions, saying: “Only half a million tickets were left. They leave the dregs for SA fans and then mess it up.”

Moroka says that the situation was unacceptable. “I was going to blame the bank, but they say that it's Fifa's ticketing system. Fifa has shown us such disrespect. They tell us to come and buy tickets and now they do this to us,” says Moroka.

Moroka refers to the SMSes that Fifa had sent out to customers who had opted to receive communication from the association, telling them they could buy tickets over the counter.

“How did they not know it would be so slow? And, once they found out, why didn't they do anything the whole day?” asks Moroka.

Although she acknowledges that Fifa is responsible for the ticketing systems and not the bank, she does still question FNB's actions. “Why does the bank have only one teller open for this? They can see so many people are waiting.”

Violent fail

“We weren't being told what was happening. There was no system, it was chaos. There were many fights and arguments, because of people jumping the queue,” says Kaka.

Moroka also experienced violence during her wait. “People would leave to go and get something to eat because they were waiting so long and then they want their place back when they come back. Then other people in the line would fight with them.”

Fifa also confirmed the fatality of one waiting customer. “We are aware about a fatality in Cape Town, a 69-year-old man having a heart attack.”

Cosatu national spokesman Patrick Craven says the man died from an apparent seizure as he waited in a queue for tickets. He was number 565 in the line.

Who's to blame?

Head of brand and marketing communications at FNB Vicky Trehaeven says the bank is linked into and completely dependent on Fifa's central ticketing system.

“If it's slow, we are slow. If it's down, we are down.”

Fifa says 1 610 tickets were sold to 310 customers nationally at the ticketing centres within the first hour after they opened at 9am this morning, with 2 166 tickets also sold to 470 fans at FNB branches.

It says the high demand caused the systems failure. “The integrated ticketing system, which manages all sales channels, experienced huge countrywide demand. As a result, [we were] experiencing some delays initially in the processing of ticket orders.”

SA ticketing manager for Match, Fifa's official ticketing service provider, James Byrom said: “We experienced some delays in issuing tickets at the outset, but we've been working on improving the response time of the system. With the improvements we have already made, the process is getting quicker and we are confident it will continue to improve throughout the day.”

Moroka experienced the contrary: “It is the end of the day. This poor bank is still open and still it takes 30 minutes for one person to get done.”

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