Shame Iraq FA, Shame
SHAME IRAQ FA, SHAME
A mate of mine who is in Dubai for the second leg of the Iraq fixture posted this morning about the exorbitant prices being charged to the away fans, that’s us Australians. A ticket that would cost the Iraqi fans about $7 is “Officially” $100 to the Australian fans.
This cynic would say this is Corrupt. Here are some excerpts from Chris’s post this morning.
The Iraqi official who was selling tickets to iraqi fans said the Australian tickets were about to arrive. He was selling tickets to the Iraqi’s for 20 dirham ($7 ish) and 50 dirham ($18ish). Finally when the Australian tickets arrived he said, “$100 US”… they were official away supporter’s tickets with $100 (360 dirham) printed on the ticket!
We finally got a hold of one of the heads of the Iraqi FA and he first promised us 50 free tickets, but reneged after we asked for them. He then went on to say that Australian Iraqi’s had to pay $45 in Brisbane which we informed him was the price everyone paid, and his final comment was, “You are from Australia so you are rich”. Another Iraqi official told us that they were pricing the tickets for Australia so high, so the stadium can be full of Iraq supporters only.
Imagine this… Tickets in Brisbane for the World Cup Qualifier between Australia and Iraq… Australians pay $45, Iraqis pay $350!!! What would be the fall out of that??!!
Just as a footnote, the officials in the UAE and the Al Ahli club have been fantastic, and most of the Iraqi fans were sympathetic to our cause, it is only the Iraqi FA that we have a problem with.
Imagine if the FFA here in Australia tried this crap. The Australian supporters would be up in arms. It is hard enough getting around Australia to watch home matches. But when the travelling fans take off overseas to foreign counties they expect it to be a little hard but you eventually break down the language barriers etc and get around. This is a brick wall thrown up in front of them like in one of those obstacle courses.
I wrote about the FFA and their lack of enthusiasm in ticket information for the travelling fan. This is the result of such inaction. I say Shame FFA, Shame, also.
Cheers
Terry
June 07 2008 08:11 am | Socceroos
