The African Cup Of Nations Stadiums Are Empty!

The organizers of the African Cup of Nations football tournament, which is being held in Ivory Coast, announced that they will take several measures to ensure that the stadiums are more full, after the opening match between the host country and Guinea-Bissau, in which attendance was disappointing. The match was held on Saturday evening in front of about 37,000 spectators, at Alassane Ouattara Stadium in the city of Anyama, north of the capital, Abidjan, which has a capacity of about 60,000 spectators. Controversy arose on social media in the Francophone country located in West Africa, due to the announcement of the complete sale of tickets, with many Ivorians pointing to the responsibility of people who bought dozens of tickets online to speculate on them, before being unable to resell them in time. “At the end of the first day of competition, many fans expressed concern about the stadium not being completely filled,” the Confederation of African Football and the Organizing Committee of the African Cup of Nations said in a press statement. They initially explained that out of the 60,000 seats available in the stadium, there were only 50,786 seats “usable” for the match, after removing the so-called “dead” seats, that is, security seats, alternative seats, and places with reduced visibility seats. For Saturday's match, 47,000 tickets were sold or made available to companies and institutions, added the organizers, who "would like to reassure residents about the measures taken to ensure easy access to the tournament ticket offices." Among these measures is ensuring, in particular, the possibility of reselling tickets allocated to fans of foreign countries or companies that did not find buyers for their tickets. “Recognizing the strong demand for the online ticketing platform and the difficulties it may cause, the CAF and the Organizing Committee are actively encouraging people to go to physical points of sale to obtain their tickets,” the statement continued. They pointed out that there are about 50 points of sale throughout the country. “We will accept the challenge of not playing any match in an empty stadium,” the statement added, which is what Kocan coach François Amecchia promised before the competition. The matches were held on Sunday and Monday in front of stadiums that were not full, so the match against Egypt, the seven-time African champion, was held in almost empty stands at the Felix Ouvet-Boigny Stadium, which has a capacity of about 33,000 spectators. At the same stadium, fans from Ghana and Cape Verde made up the majority of the audience, numbering about 12,000 people, in the clear absence of local fans. Attendance at the African Cup of Nations is usually low in most of the first round matches, before the competition intensifies in the knockout rounds later.