The Football Association of Malawi (FAM) raised K19.7 million gross gate revenue during Saturday’s Presidential Cup finals between Nyasa Big Bullets and Moyale Barracks at Civo Stadium in Lilongwe where dozens of fans were denied entry because the tickets were sold out.
Disclosing the figure in an interview yesterday, FAM commercial director Limbani Matola said after paying all stakeholders, including security and medical personnel and ticket printing services, they remained with a net figure of K16.3 million.728
“Payment for security, medical, stewards and other services was K3.4 million with K1.5 million given to the police who helped us to maintain order,” he said.
Matola said from the net, both clubs took home a 25 percent cut of K4.086 million each while government, as Civo Stadium owner, also received the same cut as a fulfilment of their agreement.
From the net proceeds, FAM got K3.2 million representing 20 percent while Malawi National Council of Sports (MNCS) got a five percent share of K817 000.
In the build-up to the game, which Bullets won through post-match penalties, people mobbed the gate controllers demanding to be let in but were refused entry as the tickets were sold out.
On this development Matola said: “We printed around 21 000 tickets because that’s the capacity of Civo and we couldn’t print more than that,” he said.
He said despite the final projected to attract mammoth crowd, the high turn up was attributed to to FAM’s good marketing strategies.
“Moyale and Bullets have met before in other competitions but I don’t think there was a time their match drew such a huge crowd,” he said. “The positive turnout was largely due to the hype we created by introducing promotions through which fans won match tickets and the tight security assurance we promised the fans.”
