2024-04-07 19:36:57
The Football Federation of Armenia made a statement regarding the ticket prices for the Armenia-Wales match to be held in Yerevan on November 18.
“Two months before the Armenia-Croatia match held on September 11, FFA started online ticket sales for that match, which was accompanied by surprise demonstrations. First, the tickets sold out in just a few hours, and then some of them appeared on the black market and were resold at much higher prices. Technical problems also arose in connection with the actual sale. a large number of genuine fans were left without a ticket. All this forced FFA to review the approach and take steps to get out of the existing situation.
New ticket prices have been set for the upcoming game with Wales, which have been labeled as ‘increased’ tickets, although in reality they have gone up in price. First of all, the minimum ticket price of 1,000 AMD was maintained, and even this year there were matches when the minimum ticket price exceeded twice the minimum ticket price for the match with Wales (in particular, the cheapest ticket price for the match with Turkey was 2,000 AMD , and the cheapest ticket price for the Armenia-Germany match held in November 2021 is AMD 3,000), but no one talked about the ticket price increase at that time.
At the same time, FFA has set different discounts for different groups of fans who can buy tickets at reduced prices. There are also other ongoing programs aimed at regulating access to the stadium for the socially disadvantaged. It should be noted that the FFA allocates 100 tickets for each match to different groups of beneficiaries, and tickets are sold to fan clubs at twice the cheap price, unless it is about the cheapest tickets.
Taking into account that most of the tickets for the Armenia-Wales match have already been sold out, and the sale went on as normal, it can be safely argued that the new pricing policy is justified and will most likely be applicable to the next matches of the national team as well. Nevertheless, the FFA is going to discuss the issue of ticket prices for next year’s matches with the members of the FFA Beneficiaries Committee, who will present a proposal on the ticket price policy.
We emphasize that the information circulating on social networks about the 20,000 tickets is not accurate, because that ticket price was set for the fans of the Wales team, as well as the FFA partner/sponsors.
It can be stated that, by and large, the resellers are the ones complaining about the increase in ticket prices for the Armenia-Wales match. The FFA does not have any authority to take action regarding black market tickets, but we believe that with the new pricing policy it was possible to at least contribute to the reduction of this vicious phenomenon, as evidenced by the drastic reduction in the number of announcements about tickets sold on the black market.
Of course, real football fans are also among the complainers. We assure you that no real football fan will suffer from this ticket policy, considering that the most expensive tickets sold out the fastest, and 1000 dram tickets were still available for sale as of October 19.
As for the money received from the sale of tickets for the Armenia-Wales match, we inform you that the proceeds of all tickets sold at higher prices will be directed to the needs of children displaced from Artsakh and playing football, as well as to the “Play for integrity” program for refugees and displaced children implemented by the FFA. “to the implementation of the project”, the statement says.