Prices for highly-coveted tickets for ACN matches sky-rocket as black market vendors enjoy a field day, reports Serene Assir As Egypt plays host this year to the 25th African Cup of Nations, energy and tension run high and build up as the competition grows tighter and the final nears. But that's not all. Accompanying the rush of adrenaline among football lovers is a repeated rush for tickets -- which is more often than not unsuccessful -- and a subsequent run for black market vendors, who are in the main quite successful, reportedly making phenomenal sums on tickets sold on the sly. Five full days before the Egypt-Congo quarter-final match, salesman Ahmed Reda began his search for tickets for seats in third class stands. "We should have bought our tickets for LE20," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Instead, we paid LE50 each." Indeed, it is a well-known economic fact that room for black market trading grows the more coveted an event is. "However, the very minute tickets were supposed to be put on sale at official touts, they had run out. Essentially, what has happened is that the vast majority of match attendees ended up buying tickets for double or sometimes triple their official price," Reda said. "The disproportion is abominable. I haven't met a single person who hasn't had to overcompensate for the competition for tickets." According to football lover Walaa Emam, the problem extends beyond mere demand and supply economics. "Something fishy is going on," she said. "In the past three matches, my fiancé and I asked repeatedly at official touts for tickets, but were turned away, only to then find out that they were sold out within minutes after we left. Without the slightest doubt, there is a conspiracy involving black market vendors, official vendors and most likely the ACN organisers themselves." Emam said the only people of whom she knew who had been able to get their hands on official tickets had contacts with large company managers and governmental officials. "Only if you are connected can you avoid having to pay extra," she complained, adding that she suspected that companies were in part to blame for the immediate sell-outs at official touts. "I've heard that company managers of, for example, petrol enterprises have linked up closely with the organisers and as soon as tickets are out on sale, they buy them in the thousands and then distribute them among their employees," she said. Meanwhile, Reda argued, "on the streets the prices rise by the hour because their availability has decreased so significantly. Black market vendors, who seem to have immediate access to tickets the minute they go on sale, buy a few hundred each, thereby creating a gap in the market which can only be filled via overcompensating." He added that the fact Egypt has done well so far "has only given vendors all the more reason to increase the prices further as the final inches closer. People are hungry to see Egypt win, and most of us are willing to pay, however much we complain." What fans have also been disillusioned by is the fact that the tickets are only actually on sale at three official touts. "This creates enormous friction at the windows, and people are regularly getting into fights as the tickets start to run out," Reda told the Weekly. "In addition, despite the fact that the ACN has, on most other accounts, been quite well organised, the difficulties that have arisen over accessing tickets have constituted a real drop in the general public's perception of the event. But we still go and enjoy ourselves regardless," he said, perhaps demonstrating that, when it comes to global events, it's not the money but the party that comes with it that counts. Officially speaking, first class tickets should cost LE120, second class LE50 and third class LE20. Fans have complained of paying as much as LE70 for third class tickets and LE100 for second.
