The World Governing body for football, FIFA has blamed the member associations and sponsors for thousands of empty seats that left Friday’s Egypt vs Uruguay tie of the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia in a dismal situation.
Even the prospect of witnessing the likes of Mohammed Salah and Luis Suarez had failed to attract the crowd into the stadium. The empty stands issue had drawn much flak and criticisms from football fans around the globe.
The match has recorded one of the poorest attendances figures in the recent history of the football’s biggest quadrennial national team tournament.
The match on Friday at Ekaterinburg Arena, which Uruguay won 1-0, registered an official attendance of a mere 27,015 at a stadium that had its capacity expanded to 33,061 for the World Cup through the addition of gigantic temporary external stands behind each goal post. The feature makes the Ekaterinburg Arena a remarkable stadium playing host to the FIFA World Cup 2018.
“Fifa has looked into this and we can confirm that the matter related to the match in Ekaterinburg was mainly linked to ‘no-shows’ from all constituent groups,” a spokesman for world football’s governing body is quoted by saying by news agency Reuters.
“There were no problems with Fifa’s ticketing operations on-site that would have prevented ticket holders from attending the match and, as already mentioned, 32,278 tickets had been allocated.”
Constituent groups can be defined as member associations and sponsors, but can also include the general public.
Many visitors were unhappy with a complicated queueing system at the stadium. “It was very confusing. We didn’t know which line was which, so you found you had been queueing for ages for beer or merchandise, not access. There were lots of very helpful volunteers, but I’m not sure they were well directed,” one Egyptian football fan was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
All morning, at various venues throughout the city, there were long lines stretching from venues handing out the fan IDs necessary to gain access to the ground. Those laminated cards were enough to get supporters into the concourse but once there they had to queue again to receive a wrist band that allowed them into the stadium, the fans flocking to the stadium have complained.
Meanwhile, many critics have blamed the world governing body for their ridiculous GBP 300 charge for the lowest priced ticket that lead to the huge swathes of empty orange stands in the stadium. Various media reports have suggested that locals cannot afford the tickets. Many others are crying over the distance of Ekaterinburg from Moscow which the farthest away as compared to other venues from the main host city.
The last World Cup to record such a small attendance was the 2010 edition in South Africa, which drew crowds of 26,643 and 23,871 for games between Paraguay and Slovakia, and New Zealand and Slovakia, respectively. The latter match was the worst attended World Cup game this century.
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