Football

15:31 | 12.07.2015 | Viewed []

Total Disorder in Vake Park

The UEFA Super Cup tickets were to go on sale on June 22. However, weak server of Biletebi.ge could not resist a large number of customers. Despite many efforts, online selling of the tickets failed.

After consultation with UEFA the Georgian Football Federation made a decision to sell tickets at the box offices of the Mikheil Meskhi stadium.

What happened today exceeded all expectations.

Two days ago ordinary citizens started to create groups. Each group included 50 people and each group was numbered. Domenti Sichinava, president of the Georgian Football Federation, stated these groups were not linked to the federation. According to Sichinava, every citizen would have been in equal condition.

However, everything happened in other way. I was in Vake Park from 23:00 last night. The citizens were insulting and abusing each other in the line. Some citizens from the back rows even threw bottles to the ones in the front. Nobody reacted on it. Patrol police controlled territory outside Vake Park.

My friends and I decided to wait until the morning.

The situation was getting tense at 9:00. We, like all other fans, moved toward the entrance of Vake Park. Some citizens asked us in which group we were. We replied the president of the federation stated there would be a live line. They started insulting Sichinava and added: “We are deciding everything here. Who wants to buy a ticket must stand in the line”. Yes, they answered in a very aggressive way. I did not want to make situation more tense and moved back where I talked to some officers of the patrol police.

They said they could do nothing to such big line. So, tickets would be sold by groups. They did not know other details. It was against Sichinava’s statement. So, the president of the federation misled a lot of people. I talked to some people who were very disappointed with the federation and they could do nothing. Sichinava stated he did not recognize the groups and the people said: “Who is Sichinava? We do whatever we want”.

Some said they were in Vake Park during three days and nights. However, it must not be advantage because some people work, study and live in regions.

The second issue is a behavior of the Georgian people. They were insulting each other but the law enforcement officers did not react on it.

I am saying nothing about how Vake Park looked. Empty bottles, bags, cans and cards were spread over the ground.

When the country and the football federation are hosting such tournament a lot is demanded from them and fans must not decide how tickets will be solved. It would have been better if tickets were on sale at the box offices of “Dinamo Arena” and “Mikheil Meskhi”. There would have been less lines and the process would have been more comfortable.

Unfortunately, today some fans said the following: “Such tournament will be held here for the first and the last time”.

P.S. The only positive thing I can say is that disabled persons and old people bought tickets without standing in the line.

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