SOCCER fans of Qatar, consider yourself lucky if you have already booked your ticket for the friendly match between eternal rivals Brazil and Argentina at Khalifa International Stadium on Wednesday.
For, there are many who may not be as lucky as you are to be able to watch their favourite football stars in action in Doha as tickets for Wednesday’s thriller are reported to be already sold out.
According to the Qatar Football Association (QFA), tickets for the match were available on the QFA website and over 50 percent of the tickets were sold out in the first week of the launch of its sale on October 21 last.
An official who chose to be anonymous said, “The QFA could still release some tickets because the staffers of corporate organisations for whom these tickets were booked may not be available on the match day.” The 50,000-seat Khalifa Stadium which will host the world’s most glamorous match had also hosted the England versus Brazil match last year.
Visit any ticket sale outlet in the city and you will come across soccer crazy people with disappointment writ large on faces.
At one such outlet in Doha, a football fan told Qatar Tribune that he was offered a VIP ticket for QR1000.
“This is greed beyond measure.
I think measures should have been taken to prevent a situation like this where soccer buffs have to choose between paying twice the price of a ticket or forgoing the thrill of watching soccer giants’ clash.
That means these avaricious individuals are making money out of real fans’ desire to see their heroes in action.” At the Villaggio mall, groups of fans were seen discussing the unavailability of match tickets and eager to pay any amount to see two of the world’s great sides at play in Doha.
Adrian Neilsen, a Swede said, “I bought my ticket online but I have been trying to purchase for my family to no avail.” According to Mohamed Ali, a Lebanese fan of Argentina’s Lionel Messi, match tickets were sold in large numbers to residents who bought them in bunches of hundreds at one time, not quite a proper thing to do.
“Tickets for such events must be sold one ticket to one person at a time, and not in the way it was done,” he quipped.
“To think that Messi will be in Doha and I won’t get to see him in flesh and bone is painful,” he added.
A soccer fan from England, Maurice Huddlestone, said, “I tried buying online but was told they were sold out.
I came to try my luck at the sale outlet, but only encountered disappointment.
Now I see no chance of watching the match from the stands.” The rivalry between the two nations has thrown up some classic, often violent, moments, like the ill-tempered group match during Argentina’s 1978 World Cup or Brazil’s thrashing of Argentina in Spain in ’82, with Maradona being sent off in the process.
As recently as the last World Cup in South Africa, Diego Maradona said his Argentina team was a Rolls Royce driven by Lionel Messi, while Luis Fabiano compared Brazil to an aircraft.
“It’s a jet, a low-flying jet,” Luis Fabiano said.
“For sure we will surprise a lot of people out there.” Participation of several soccer stars like Lionel Messi of Argentina and Ronaldinho of Brazil in the match is confirmed.
The match is an opportunity for Qatar to bolster its already impressive bid for the 2022 World Cup.
Qatar currently have no professional league and want to use Capello’s expertise to assist in launching one.
