KUALA LUMPUR: The FA of Malaysia (FAM) are disappointed with the statement by the Malaysia Stadiums Board (MSB) who claim that the national football governing body’s refusal to cooperate and work together is the reason behind complications in ticket sales for the AFF Cup.
FAM secretary-general, Stuart Ramalingam said that they have taken into consideration all sorts of aspects including the cost of tickets for the fans in determining the best possible way to sell tickets.
“FAM are disappointed when MSB made such a statement when we are the tenants or rather their loyal customers. MSB can further discuss the matter with FAM without the need to make such an open statement.
“It has to be admitted that the ticket sales system used by MSB via the services of Seat Advisor is much better, but it cannot be compared to the ticket sales system that we are using now which is Ticket Hotline.
“We take into account the cost in charges that will be imposed on the fans is much higher, by about RM3 if we were to use the ticket sales system used by MSB. In fact it is rather unfair because the charge is not only applied for tickets purchased online but also for tickets sold over the counter, while we do not impose such charges for tickets sold over the counter,” he told NSTP Sport here earlier today (Thursday).
Before this there were grouses aired by fans when wanting to make payment as well as concerning the ticket collections which were accused of being troublesome, which resulted in MSB issuing a statement to deny that they are the ones responsible for the ticket sales.
According to Stuart, they have held discussions together with MSB with regards to ticket sales for the AFF Cup though they failed to reach a joint agreement on the matter.
“We also faced problems when renting the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil before this but we never publicised the matter openly. The rental of the stadium is rather costly but we did not include such a cost in the ticket prices because we do not want to further burden the fans.
“If we were to sell 60,000 tickets and only charge RM3, then we will have to pay as much as RM180,000 to MSB, which is a very costly charge. For me, we do not have any issue or problem in working together with MSB, but their move to openly ‘attack’ FAM should not have been allowed to happen,” he said.
To date, about 40,000 tickets for Malaysia’s final Group A match against Myanmar at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil have been sold.
Grandstand tickets costing RM30 have been sold out while the sale of tickets for open seating costing RM20 and children tickets costing RM5 are still ongoing at the stadium’s counters at Gates A and E from 10am to 5pm tomorrow (Friday) and on match day.