E-ticketing needs time— Alfred Gunda
Football Association of Malawi (Fam) General Secretary (GS), Alfred Gunda, has urged football authorities to explore other means of improving gate management as electronic ticketing cannot happen overnight.
Gunda said much as it is imperative to embrace the e-ticketing system, the initiative requires intensive investment.
“E-ticketing needs infrastructural adjustment, which also requires sound financial muscle. So, it is an issue to do with who owns the stadia and what value are we attaching to the process of trying to improve our gate collections in football. So it is not something you can just wake up and say ‘we are doing it’. It requires millions of money,” Gunda said.
However, the GS said the new technology is not far from being achieved in Malawi.
“I think let us stop being negative about developments. It is not that we should forget about e-ticketing. [As a country] we are growing and we have to adopt some technology that can improve our revenue collection. We have talked about e-ticketing, but what type of e-ticketing is suitable for our situation in Malawi? That is the question we need to be asking ourselves,” Gunda said.
He said this on Friday at Fam’s Mpira Village in Chiwembe Township during a workshop which the association for Sports Writers Association (Swam) facilitated.
The new system requires fans to buy special cards and electronic tickets to watch games in the stadiums.
The card comes in three forms: credit card, debit card and pre-paid card. The card includes the identity information of the supporter on one side and their photograph on the other.
However, stadiums need gadgets for swiping the cards when entering. No local facility has such cards. Silver Strikers launched the e-ticketing project but it is yet to take off.
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