Singapore’s 2-1 win over rivals Malaysia on Saturday in the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) Tri-Nations Series friendly was marred by a ticketing issue that prevented hundreds of fans from seeing the kick-off.
The match took place at Singapore’s National Stadium (pictured) and was attended by 14,896 fans, a post-pandemic record after the Government recently allowed 50% capacity for venues that can hold 1,000 spectators or more.
Some fans were unable to download their ticket, which was purchased through Singapore ticketing platform, Sistic. This resulted in hundreds of fans being told to queue for a printed ticket, causing them to miss the start of the match. In the end, organisers and support providers Singapore Sports Hub said that fans could enter using proof of purchase.
Sistic posted on social media on the evening of the match and said: “We acknowledge that a technical error on Sistic’s part caused fans to experience issues retrieving their e-tickets for the Singapore vs Malaysia match.
“We apologise to the Football Association of Singapore, Singapore Sports Hub and all fans for the distress caused and regret the disruption to the match experience. We have since resolved the issue and are working with the FAS and Singapore Sports Hub to ensure there will be no further disruption for the next match.”
Sistic further told The Straits Times that the company’s monitoring system detected errors with the e-ticket service before the match. A spokesperson for the company said: “This is the first incident related to accessibility of e-tickets for Sistic events and the issue was rectified on the day of the incident.
“We remain committed to thorough investigations, testing and checking to prevent similar situations from happening in the future.”
FAS also took to social media to apologise and said: “We are aware that there is currently a major malfunction with the Sistic ticketing system that has resulted in fans being unable to download their e-tickets. We apologise for this unfortunate incident and are working hard to rectify the situation as soon as possible.”
Image: Dietmar Rabich/CC BY-SA 4.0/ Edited for size