World Cup qualifier? Scalpers |go too far this time

ISN’T IT FANTASTIC that Thai football is more popular than it’s been in many, many years? Absolutely, agree the ticket scalpers, fanning themselves with a fat wad of banknotes.
With devotees of the game frenzied again today as the Thai side attempts to qualify for the World Cup in a match against Taiwan at Bangkok’s Rajamangala Stadium, tickets are hot items, and that’s why the scalpers are fanning themselves. They’re making an overheated fortune on this game.
When seats at the stadium went on sale on October 26, they sold out in minutes, and not through patriotic enthusiasm. A Sanook.com user named Nalek2499 spent more than two hours that morning in a queue at ThaiTicketMajor and came away empty-handed. The scalpers and their paid “plants” were ahead of him in line. He was miffed. “We must not surrender to these unscrupulous sellers no matter how much we love Thai football!” Nalek declared.
Nor did many of the fans trying to buy tickets online have any better luck. Their complaints engulfed the social media with toxic fumes, along with the airwaves at sport radio station FM 99. Much of the furore centred on the usual question: How can these guys seize control of such huge blocks of tickets?
No sooner had official sales ended than a big chunk of seats was advertised online at prices that can only be described as obscene – Bt500 face values going for Bt4,000! And of course the price-gougers found their desperate customers, despite the usual widespread appeal for a boycott on scalpers.
FM 99 has been at the forefront of the boycott campaign, repeatedly telling listeners to pay the official rate or none at all. “This is the only way we can fight them,” as one host put it. “The match will be broadcast live and you can watch at home. Don’t support them – let them die!”
Yuthana “Ted” Boonorm, organiser of the annual Big Mountain Music Festival, was distressed to be repeating the same message he tries to get out every year when scalpers pull their “daylight robbery” on his event.
Observers at least noticed a slight improvement for the Thailand-Taiwan match. According to a report on Pantip.com, quite a few tickets had gone unsold, resulting in the prices being marked down to a “low, low” Bt960. The news was widely shared in the hope that it means some scalpers might be mending their evil ways. But let’s not get our hopes too high. It’s going to be a long, hard grind putting the scalpers out of business.
One fan posting on Sanook.com offered an interesting perspective. He said he wished the stadium could be mostly empty for the match – it would certainly get Thai football’s governing body to do something about scalping.
Ted, a leading advocate of boycotting them, loved the idea. “This is the right way to tackle the people who resell ghost tickets,” he said. “Don’t buy!”