E-ticketing shelved

Efforts to end gate revenue theft at football matches will remain a pipe dream as the Ministry of Youth and Sports’ mega automated gate management project will not roll out this year as planned.

That is not all. Super League of Malawi (Sulom) and TNM’s plan to let fans pay for TNM Super League matches electronically using TNM Mpamba debt card this season has also been deferred.

Findings by a 10-member taskforce that the Malawi National Council of Sports set up last year revealed that gate fraud and theft at matches could not stop as long as spectators continued to pay cash at the gates.

Last year, director of Sports in the Ministry of Youth and Sports Jameson Ndalama told our sister newspaper, The Nation, that plans to implement the automated gate management project were at an advanced stage and they would include it in the 2023/24 Budget.

But in an interview yesterday, Ndalama said the project has been halted to pave way for the completion of unfinished  sports projects such as the Griffin Saenda Sports Complex and the Aquatic Complex in Lilongwe plus stadia for FCB Nyasa Bullets and Mighty Mukuru Wanderers in Blantyre.

“It has been agreed to first clear the backlog of unfinished sports projects before we can slot in new ones. As soon as that backlog is cleared, the automated gate management initiative will be prioritised,” he said.

The project, which is also one of the Sports Council’s reforms areas, was estimated to cost K300 million in terms of hardware and software installation, but Ndalama said with time the cost will be higher.

The initiative will see Bingu National Stadium (BNS) hosting the e-ticketing server that will link all the country’s major stadiums.

While waiting for the project, Sulom and TNM announced that they would roll out e-ticketing through the use of Mpamba debt cards this season, but over four weeks since the elite league kicked off, spectators are still using cash at the gates.

Sulom president Fleetwood Haiya and TNM plc corporate affairs manager Limbani Nsapato, who demonstrated the e-ticketing platform to the stakeholders at Kamuzu Stadium on Thursday, yesterday said their initiative has just been delayed, but will start later within the season.

“As sponsors, TNM have made some investments towards that initiative and we are waiting for them to take charge first,” he said.

“We are also looking at other possible alternatives because e-ticketing is a must to curb gate revenue theft and maximise revenue for our clubs. We will have a clear picture on this before the end of the league’s first round.”

On his part, Nsapato said they are making advancements towards rolling out the system but could not tell when exactly that will happen.

“We believe this platform will help protect gate revenue. With such technology, teams have a chance to monitor how tickets are being sold; hence, promoting transparency and accountability on gate collections.”

Mighty Mukuru Wanderers chief executive officer Roosevelt Mpinganjira touted the platform as being a game changer in match revenue management.

But Football Association of Malawi general secretary Alfred Gunda said they will only commit to an e-ticketing platform that “speaks to our situation”.

He said: “We are currently working on how best to hit the ground. We have tried various e-ticketing models that still fall short of our expectations.

“To us, the best model will be the one that completely gets rid of the human element because at present, when one buys a ticket digitally, there are still people that physically check the tickets at the gates and that is problematic.

“With this arrangement, gate fraud can still exist as many people can enter using a recycled ticket. We need to first have infrastructure that speak to technology and, unfortunately, that does not come cheap.”