THOUSANDS of disgruntled fans of Nicosia football team APOEL were yesterday forced to leave the GSP Stadium in the capital empty handed, after queuing for hours to secure a ticket to their team’s Champions League match to Real Madrid on Tuesday.
Some had slept in the stadium’s car park overnight to be sure to get their hands on the much-desired tickets, while others started arriving from as early as 2 am.
But what really riled fans was that it wasn’t until around 11.30am when an announcement was made that there would be a limited amount of tickets available.
Even though APOEL couldn’t be reached later yesterday to confirm numbers, fans said there couldn’t have been more than 300 to 500 tickets available at the stadium. Many were baffled over where all the 22,500 tickets went.
The some 5,000-strong crowd – which reached from where the tickets are sold at the entrance of the stadium all the way to the front of the car park started to dwindle after the announcement that a mere few hundred tickets would be available there.
“They just told us there was a limited amount of tickets and seeing that we were towards the end of the line, we just decided to leave,” one middle-aged couple told the Cyprus Mail as they were leaving. Clearly deflated, the woman added: “We haven’t missed a game for decades. We’ve been here since six this morning. Now we have to tell the boys.”
Around 3,000 fans remained, awaiting further news, which didn’t come until about an hour later, when the ticket vendor arrived at his station.
The window had barely opened for 10 minutes, when the vendor closed it, got up and left. A sense of unease started spreading through the crowd, before an announcement came over the speaker that no tickets were left.
Tempers started to flare, with fans starting to march towards the stadium’s entrance to seek explanations from the team’s management.
With that, around 40 members of the police force’s rapid reaction unit (MMAD) stormed out of the entrance and created a human barrier, preventing the outraged fans from going in. A few plastic bottles were hurled and a lot of abuse was shouted, before the fans finally realised there was not much they could do and left.
“Some people have been here since five and six in the morning, others stayed in their cars overnight,” one 36-year-old fan told the paper. “Others had to take leave from work, some people have lost a day’s earnings and there are even schoolchildren here, hoping to get a ticket.”
Asked to express how he felt, another 19-year-old fan said: “Think of around 20 curses and write them down.”
But 20-year-old Stavros Ioannou couldn’t believe how badly he had been treated by the team he has dedicatedly followed since he was old enough to attend games with his dad. “It’s not that the tickets ran out; it’s that they left us here, thousands of fans, for hours without telling us what was going on,” said Ioannou. “Why didn’t they tell us yesterday that they only had a few hundred tickets, so at least we wouldn’t have wasted our time.”
A similar sense of disappointment was felt last Saturday, when throngs of fans visited the team’s Orange Shop in Nicosia to get tickets. They were told that only season ticket holders could buy them from the shop, but that they were also being sold online.
Even though it was only season ticket holders who could buy online as well, there were no restrictions on the number they could buy. There were so many demands, the website crashed almost two hours later and sales were blocked.
There have been persistent rumours that the lack of restrictions was exploited by certain individuals, who purchased a large number of tickets – rumoured to be as much as 200 at a time– in order to sell them on the night on the black market.
A number of websites also started appearing, offering tickets for as much as €399 – the tickets should cost between €50 and €250, depending on where you sit.
APOEL couldn’t be reached to comment yesterday, though a spokesman for the police said: “In the event that something like that is spotted, the police will definitely intervene. But so far we have no information on such a matter.”
The team’s press department yesterday issued an apologetic announcement, blaming the confusion on the massive demand for tickets.
“The demand for tickets to the APOEL – Real Madrid for the quarterfinals of the Champions League was unprecedented and unfortunately it was humanly impossible to satisfy, taking into account the capacity of the GSP Stadium, but also the contractual obligation towards organising authority UEFA and the visiting team,” APOEL announced later in the day.
“We are sincerely sorry that thousands of APOEL friends will not be able to visit the pitch on Tuesday night to observe this historical match,” it added. “We are also sorry for the hassle this has caused to thousands to our team’s friends today, but also the previous days, in their effort to secure a ticket.”
The team’s management said it made “every possible effort” to deal with this massive demand. “We fully understand the feelings of bitterness and upset that may have been caused, but unfortunately only if the GSP stadium’s capacity was double could we satisfy the desire of all APOEL fans to watch the match.”
According to the team’s officials, APOEL is expected to gain over €20 million from its participation in the Champions League. It is the first Cypriot team to ever reach the quarterfinals of any European tournament.
