The revolutionary decision by the Ahmad Ahmad administration to play the CAF Super Cup outside Africa for the first time is turning out to be a masterstroke as available tickets for Friday’s match in Qatar have been sold out.
The purchase of tickets for the match between the champions of the CAF Champions and CAF Confederation Cup has become extremely popular with local and foreign fans in the Qatari capital.
The Organizing Committee of the 2019 CAF Super Cup has revealed that the first and second tranches of tickets sales for the match between Moroccan giants Raja Casablanca and Esperance of Tunisia were done electronically and were sold out minutes after it went on sale.
The match to be played on Friday, March 29, at Al Thani Bin Jassim Stadium at the Al Gharafa Sports Club in Doha has seen massive interest from supporters of both sides keen on travelling from Morocco and Tunisia.
There was also interest from some fans from other neighbouring countries of Qatar keen on watching the game as well as some fans from Qatar.
The organizing committee said in a statement that it is immediately putting the final instalment of the remaining five thousand tickets on sale three days ahead of the date they were scheduled to be sold to avoid a last minute rush for the tickets.
The committee also restricted the purchase to four tickets per person to avoid people buying it now and then selling it on the black market for a higher price.
The rush for the tickets show that CAF President’s radical approach to competition is beginning to reap instant benefits with the desire of making the competition popular by taking it to other territories.
This is part of a raft of decisions taken since Ahmad took charge of CAF two years ago meant to make the game more popular beyond Africa while making it commercially viable.
The committee explained that Doha’s hosting of the African Super Cup comes under an agreement signed on December 12, 2018 by the President of the Qatar Football Federation, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed Al-Thani, and the president of the African Confederation of CAF, Ahmed Ahmed, in the framework of a cooperation partnership between the two sides.
