Furore over big R28m flop

CITY of Cape Town officials have been left licking their wounds after the pre-season tournament featuring English club Crystal Palace and Portuguese outfit Sporting Lisbon flopped.

The final receipts are not in yet but the city is expected to incur losses after spending R28-million to host a four-team event that also included Ajax Cape Town and SuperSport United a few days ago.

As questions continue to be asked about the wisdom behind spending so much money on a pre-season event, mayoral committee member for tourism, events and economic development Garreth Bloor told the Dispatch that their predictions indicated that there would be demand for the competition.

But as it turned out, only 22 000 tickets were sold for the four matches played at Cape Town Stadium.

‘‘We were responsive to the ticket price, but this simply underpinned the fact that without sponsorship or significant lower appearance fees, perhaps international football should be restricted to Bafana Bafana games,” said Bloor.

‘‘In reviewing the final attendance numbers, it is apparent that perhaps the ticket prices for international football are beyond the affordability of the average Cape Town household,” he explained.

Tourism, events and marketing director Anton Groenewald fell on his sword this week and quit in the aftermath of the furore surrounding the tournament.