Buying Malaysian Super League tickets – FAS FAIL

We should have never left the Malaysian league. That’s the consensus many of us hold and believe all these years.

We all knew that 17-years ago and the Football Association of Singapore had to eat the humble pie for going back.

Our Malaysian Cup team back then had a good thing going but it seems the top brass got greedy and Singapore walked out of the Malaysian league over stupid gate receipts issue.

The current Lions 12, mainly comprising of national under 23-years old local lads and senior players will ply their soccer trade in neighbouring Malaysia.

The Lions XII comprise of 28-man squad which includes the likes of Shahril Ishak, Khairul Amri, Agu Casmir and Hariss Harun.

Yes I do agree that we should also focus on our domestic league, however playing against Malaysian footballing states brought the whole country together. It was indeed an exciting time and I do miss it.

Even after leaving the Malaysian league and the focus was made on the S-League, Singapore soccer has not made much progress.

We’re still hovering between the 140-150th ranking nearly these two decades, and the domestic league rather than producing talents and results, the people behind the S-League are more keen in match-fixing, financial irregularities and soccer brawls.

I don’t know how FAS will tackle on both fronts, the Malaysian Super League and our very own local league, but on my small part I’ll be supporting our boys who will play against the Malaysian teams.

I’ll be there attending the debut match between LionsXII versus Kelantan, this 10th January 2012, at the Jalan Besar stadium.

Jalan Besar Stadium is the current home stadium of Young Lions and has a capacity of seating 6,000 fans.

I purchased the tickets yesterday and if going by the way how this new initiative by FAS to bring back the fans, there are still plenty of areas to improve upon.

I’ve never been to an S-League before, so I wouldn’t know the average waiting time to purchase a ticket but it took a bloody hell of a long time to get my Malaysian Super League tickets yesterday.

I planned for a quick purchase during lunch time but it took me an hour plus instead. I’ve been to big major concerts before and buying the tickets wasn’t as bad as my experience yesterday. Like hello, it’s not like I’m going for a KPOP event that had hordes of fans.

There were only two measly counters manning the ticket booth, and I timed on average each purchase a person took is about 2 minutes. You multiply that by a few thousand, the long queues seen yesterday was understandable.

The queue spiralled around the stadium. The hot weather wasn't helping either.

You know how much time and money I lost in that hour plus alone. I’m a freelancer, so that’s money down the drain.

Heck I’ll even pay more for the tickets if it means I don’t have to wait. We Singaporeans are known to be efficient and this just shows the top down management at FAS is still crap.

It’s not hard adding perhaps another four to six counters. Maybe even a dedicated counter for specific ticket, from grandstand to the normal ones. Plus you guys ever heard of online payment and ticketing. Pffftttt.

Also regarding the free t-shirt that came with the ticket purchase, you could bloody well hang the various sizes that are available.

This is so we have an idea which to choose when we get to the counter, rather than hanging around the counter again deciding which size is best and creating more lines behind us.

Well now that I’ve finally get that off my chest, I’m feeling much better now. No I’m not trying to spoil the moment, but this is issues for which the association can look into. I’m all for the Malaysian Super League and I do hope it will be a rousing success.

See you all this Tuesday.

P.S. Please forgive my morning-have-not-showered face in the photo below.

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