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What’s The Story?
ISL 2017 gets underway on Friday, and ATK are set to face Kerala Blasters at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, in Kochi in the opening game. However, to the disappointment of the Kerala fans, many of them have not been able to acquire tickets for the match due to the sabotage of tickets.
Now, the Kerala State Human Rights Commission has ordered a probe into the alleged touting of tickets of the inaugural ISL match of November 17.
The Context
In the last few days, the Kochi fans have been looking for tickets, but as per the authorities, due to the renovation work, after the recently-concluded FIFA U17 World Cup, the numbers of seats were compromised, reducing the capacity of the stadium to only 41,000.
The Heart of the Matter:
As the availability of tickets are low ahead of the opening game, thousands of fans have been left in the dark over how they would attend the game. On seeing this situation, a Corporation Councillor from Kochi has approached the Kerala State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC).
Thampi Subramaniyan, the Councillor of Palluruthy approached the commission of the football-crazy fans of Kochi as there were no tickets available at the counters.
What’s Next:
According to Thampi, tickets are being sold from the market at five times higher the rate than the original, and people who are not familiar with online ticketing are being forced to buy these passes at high rates. He feels that there is human rights violation at play here. It remains to be seem what comes out of this probe.
Author’s Take:
Kochi is known for its football-crazy fans. The ISL committee should intervene and solve the issues as soon as possible. Fans are the reason behind the success of the tournament. Let's just hope things get sorted soon.
