GHANA 2008 Ticket Prices - The ordinary Ghanaian football fan

IT'S the hope of every Ghanaian football loving fan (including me) that the country hosts a very successful Cup of Nations. I would very much love to see Ghana 2008 be an improvement on the last Cup of Nations in Egypt. But first of all to have a very successful Cup of Nations, we will need to get all the stadia filled, no matter who is playing. Whether it's Egypt-Zambia, Guinea-Morocco or Ghana-Guinea it doesn't matter. I was in Egypt for the Cup of Nations and one major drawback of the event was spectatoring. The local organising committee had to arrange for students to go to the stadium to cheer the teams but then matches involving Egypt always saw a capacity crowd.

With Ghana hosting the Nations Cup, I believe we should do well to fill the various stadia to send a good message to the rest of the world, but recent developments have proved otherwise. I was very surprised when I heard that the least priced ticket to watch a match is GH¢10, with the highest (VIP) being GH¢200. How come? Have the authorities forgotten that the tournament will be aired live on TV? Did they also take into consideration the economic conditions prevailing in the country? If anybody says that it was done in consultation with CAF, I'll say it's utterly laughable. What does CAF know about the economic hardships in this country? How can you tell the citizens of one of the poorest regions in Ghana (Northern Region) to pay GH¢10 to watch a football match? Even Real Tamale United which is the pride of the North charges ¢GH1.50 (¢15,000) for their matches and even that, it would surprise many to know that people find it difficult to watch their matches. We are taking about Ghana, where about 90% of football fans who go to the stadium are the youth who struggle to even pay GH¢3 (¢30,000) to watch league matches.

The Cup of Nations will be played in January. How nice! The LOC should know that in this dear country of ours, Christmas is something that is not to be joked with. Workers are normally paid around the 20th for them to be able to do their shopping for their families and other relatives. Normally by the 3rd of January when the Christmas and the New Year festivities are over, workers will be broke and the month of January begin to look like 2 months made into 1. Yet you tell the ordinary Ghanaian worker to pay GH¢10 to watch a football match. Isn't it the same LOC who said they would be mounting giant television screens outside the various stadia? One may ask, why spend such an amount to enter the stadium when he can watch the matches outside. The matches will also be telecast live on our national TV station, GTV and again shown on DSTV and other pay TV networks. Did our authorities take all these into consideration?

There are a lot of ways to make money out of this tournament. The LOC can enter into agreement with some of the corporate entities in the country on the naming rights for the various stadia. The Baba Yara Sports Stadium for instance could be named MTN Stadium with the telecommunication giants buying the naming rights for let's say 10 years for $20million. Instead, we are looking at outrageous prices to make money. This is Ghana and I can assure the LOC and CAF that if care is not taken, even matches involving the Black Stars will not have the expected capacity crowd. I believe it's time we set the records straight. The gate prices are simply outrageous and unacceptable because nobody will pay GH¢10 to watch the Black Stars when he has the choice of watching the match in the comfort of his home with some few friends. I've heard organisers of Ghana 2008 urging Ghanaians to sacrifice a little to help make the tournament a success. Sacrifice! The officials should also be considerate because this is a country that has just come out from HIPC. So then how many Ghanaians can pay more than $10 to watch Sudan vrs Zambia, Guinea vrs Namibia, South Africa vrs Tunisia or even Egypt vrs Cameroon, and even those who can afford to pay, how many of them will?

The LOC / CAF and anybody involved should come again or else we're going to have a big problem with spectatoring during the tournament. In Egypt 2006, the cheapest ticket to watch host nation Egypt play was US$2.50 which is not even up to GH¢3.00. Two years later Ghana, far poorer than Egypt are charging US$11 as the cheapest ticket with or without the Black Stars playing. In Egypt, matches which were not involving their national team had US$1.75 as the cheapest ticket. So somebody should explain to us why a poor country like ours should pay more than 5 times that price.