Tickets for India’s upcoming Asian Cup qualifying round match against Cambodia at the Salt Lake Stadium on June 8 were sold out within 10 minutes, forcing the AIFF to issue more.
Chhetri had on Friday urged the state government authorities to allow more people than the mere 12,000 tickets allowed for the Asian Cup qualifiers final round matches.
While the All India Football Federation has made all the tickets “complimentary”, the state government has “allowed just 12,000 tickets” in the 70,000-capacity Salt Lake Stadium to avoid any law and order problem.
“They (opposition teams) should feel it. If in a stadium of almost 90,000 people if only 10-15,000 what’s the point of having a home advantage?” Chhetri had asked.
“I hope they (state government) will allow it, otherwise it will be a chaos and they will barge in.” After Chhetri’s reaction made headlines, there was a meeting between the state government and the AIFF this morning and it was “decided to open up the stadium as long as there’s demand”. “Whoever quoted the number 12,000, spoke out of his hat, it’s all rubbish”, a reliable source, who attended the meeting, told PTI.