Football stakeholders have bemoaned poor gate management in Sunday evening’s FDH Bank Premiership Blantyre derby between Mighty Wanderers and FCB Nyasa Bullets at Bingu National Stadium (BNS) in Lilongwe.
Despite the stadium being almost filled to capacity, the latest episode of the most sought-after fixture on the domestic scene, which Bullets won 1-2, grossed K90.8 million.
The cheapest advance standard ticket was K8 000 while on match day it fetched K10 000.
From the gross, K24.25 million went towards expenses, including security, cashiering firm and networking, leaving a K66.57 million net from which the two teams got K18.3 million each while the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture received K16.64 million as ground levy.
Super League of Malawi (Sulom )got K6.6 million while the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) and Malawi National Council of Sports received K3.3 million each.
celebrates scoring
the second goal with
George Chaomba.
| Courtesy of Bullets
In separate interviews, Sulom, Bullets and the ministry said the gross did not reflect the turnout and blamed it mostly on poor gate management.
Sulom treasurer Ali Mwachande said they were “very disappointed” with the gross revenue.
He said: “Looking at the crowd, the gross should have been around K150 million. The biggest challenge we had was that many people forced their way in by breaking the perimeter fence.
“Then, we gathered that there were some fraudsters who were selling parallel tickets and despite being alerted, the police did nothing and I should state here that they [police] let us down big time.”
Mwachande also said stakeholders should take the blame for the continued sale of counterfeit tickets.
He said: “It’s people within the system who are at the centre of the malpractice, otherwise how can outsiders access ticket features?”
In an interview, Bullets acting chief executive officer Albert Chigoga said: “This [the gross revenue] is big joke. It is disastrous! I have never witnessed shambolic gate management in many years like it was on Sunday.
“It was terrible to see throngs of people entering for free without any police officer on site. This is disgusting! I have said time without number that BNS is a haven for daylight theft.”
The ministry’s spokesperson Macmillan Mwale said they were also concerned with the situation at the match.
“We are struggling to pay utility bills because of such lapses in the system and we end up getting peanuts. On the way forward, there is need for strong collaboration among stakeholders to get to the bottom of this,” he said.
Mwale also said some areas have been damaged, citing the perimeter fence.
Host team Wanderers were not available for comment while Central West Region police spokesperson Foster Benjamin said Suilom did not raise the issues with them formally.
He said: “When our officers are assigned for such tasks, normally there is someone who is in charge, but Sulom never saised these issues with him.
“Let me also urge Sulom and FAM] to be hiring more police officers for such high-profile matches so that we are not overwhelmed.”
