Friday, October 10, 2008 Record crowd turnout By Marian C. Baring Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THE Cebu Coliseum has become too small for the Cesafi.
Last Wednesday night’s triple-header of the championship season of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc., (Cesafi) was a staggering success, breaking the all-time record in terms of attendance.
This was announced yesterday by Cesafi commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy. This could have been the cherry on top of a very successful year, had it not been for some unscrupulous individuals, who took advantage of the Cesafi phenomenon.
The crowd last Wednesday was triple the number of that in last Monday’s game with the Cebu Coliseum personnel resorting to letting people in by batches. The gates were closed during in the battle for third between the University of Cebu and University of San Carlos.
Once some of the UC and USC fans were out of the coliseum, they then allowed people hoping to watch the juniors finals between UV and UC and later, the late comers who wished to watch the seniors finals had to be squeezed in.
Such was the situation in the Coliseum that a young lady had to be attended by the first aid team after fainting from the suffocating heat.
This was the situation last Wednesday and by the looks of it, Cesafi could have raked in a lot of income from it.
However, during the most successful day of the season finals, it was also the day when Cesafi had the lowest ticket sales after they were victimized by scalpers. Their sales went down by 30 percent.
“We never really experienced having our tickets faked. We were not prepared for an incident like this to happen that gate officials had to chase these scalpers away,” Tiukinhoy added.
Popular
Fake tickets were sold at P50, some P20 higher than what was sold at the gates. People were tricked into buying as they need not line up to buy them.
“In hindsight, I guess it shows just how popular Cesafi has become because people actually take their time to fake them,” said Tiukinhoy, who found out about the shenanigan when someone tried to sell him tickets.
“They even had season passes, which we only give out to school officials. When he saw my ID, he walked away from me,” Tiukinhoy added.
Meanwhile, Tiukinhoy added that he was impressed at how the crowd acted last Wednesday.
Because everyone had to squeeze inside the coliseum, the system of crowd traffic control totally broke down. Fans were always made to sit in the same side of the coliseum to prevent any trouble once the game becomes heated. Because the record turnout, fans of the opposing teams were forced to sit together.
Before the seniors game, the taunting had already started, forcing Tiukinhoy to talk to the crowd.
“Mag respeto-ay lang ta kay duwa raman ni,” Tiukinhoy pleaded, which, curiously, got the applause of the crowd.
“We had an educated crowd. I mean, some schools officials complained to me that we had to tell those people who were shirtless. But they did not mean to be bastos. It was just too hot inside the coliseum. Maybe the coliseum could put up airconditioning in the future,” he said.
