Botswana Premier League (BPL) management’s new ticketing dispensation which sees teams source and sell tickets for their own home Premier league matches came into effect this past weekend.
The new ticketing dispensation was adopted after some premier league teams complained that the companies that were contracted to sell tickets failed to deliver.
The 2018/2019 season will see all the teams producing and selling tickets for their matches, teams are at liberty to find suppliers/companies whom they will procure and sell tickets for their matches.
While the new dispensation is said to have gone well in most of the scheduled matches, it however came under scrutiny over the weekend when Extension Gunners and Mochudi Centre Chiefs clashed.
Scores of supporters from both sides were left with a pie on the face as tickets were sold out and the supporters had to use stamped papers to get into the match day venue.
The problem seems to have come after the host team Extension Gunners failed to procure enough tickets for the match. This led to the team coming up with a compromise whereby they cut papers, stamped them and sold them for P30.
Contacted for comment on Monday, Botswana Premier League Chief Executive officer, Thabo Styles Ntshinogang said the new introduced dispensation has worked well in all their games except in Lobatse. He said they are waiting for Gunners to explain what led to the ticket shortages.
Asked how they are going to deal with teams that fail to procure enough tickets for their matches he said “We have Disciplinary Structures which we can refer the matter to.”
On the other hand Gunners communications manager, Willoughby Kemoen said they failed to print enough tickets due to network problems.
“The company that was contracted to produce the tickets encountered problems of network failure since Friday and on Saturday they could not manage to print enough because there was continuous failure of network,” Kemoen explained.
Faced with such a problem, Kemoen said they had to make a plan to ensure supporters can get access into the match venue.
“We then came up with a compromise plan to cut papers and stamp them so that supporters could buy and enter the stadium,” the Gunners PRO said.
