The Premier Soccer League have given an update on the ticket issue around the Nedbank Cup final ticket sales, revealing that 10 501 tickets were sold over the official capacity of the stadium are in process of being refunded.
Tickets for the highly anticipated Soweto Derby between record Nedbank Cup champions Kaizer Chiefs and back-to-back winners Orlando Pirates went on sale on Monday.
However, the Open Tickets system crashed “due to an unprecedented demand” as the service provider had stated on Tuesday morning. Later on Tuesday, the PSL had a meeting to prepare for the event and deal with the issue, with Mato Madlala, acting CEO of the PSL saying Stadium Management CEO Berti Grobbelaar was roped in as an independent auditor.
“We had a meeting with the commissioner to address the issues. That’s why we couldn’t release a statement,” Madlala stated on Wednesday.
“It was a very successful meeting and that’s why we’re sitting here together as a joint venture to explain what happened.
“We’ve roped in Berti Grobbelaar, who has been worked with the same service provider for the derby at FNB Stadium. He comes in as an independent auditor to assess the numbers and facts.
“I’m not interested in the statements from the service provider; I’m interested in the hard facts.
”We had an unprecedented demand and after 15/20 minutes the Open Tickets server crashed. We then roped in Computicket to assist.
”But there was no live report or communication, that’s when the overissue happened.”
Grobbelaar then explained that more tickets than the capacity of the stadium were sold, but those 10 501 people have already been refunded or still going to be refunded.
“I’m not representing Open Tickets or Stadium Management, the PSL asked me to analyse numbers,” Grobbelaar stated.
“Is there not an issue of overselling of tickets… The capacity of the stadium is 49 307 seats, a reduced capacity but the capacity on the number of tickets that were issued – 41 000 general access tickets went on sale.
“According to the preliminary report, the minute the tickets opened it was sold out in 90 minutes. That caused a breach. Fact is tickets went on sale; the system allowed more people to make payments then there is capacity for.
“Open Tickets stopped the platform from issuing physical tickets but the payments still went through.
“From the overissuing of tickets, 19 561 had to be allocated to people that paid but did not get their tickets. 10 501 tickets were paid for but were overcapacity and those people had to be refunded.
“All people to the capacity of the stadium have received their tickets, either in hard copy or digital. There were no more tickets issued than the capacity allows for.
“Of the people that paid but cannot be allocated a ticket due to the overcapacity, 80% as we speak, everyone that bought online were refunded. The other 20%, people that paid via EFT or other form of payment platform have all received messages and will be refunded via EFT.
“From an event safety perspective for tomorrow there is people that were allocated but didn’t get tickets and were refunded or are in the process of being refunded. The people that paid for tickets up until capacity all received their tickets.”
